Madness at the Gate
by ZenoNoKyuubi
Summary: The sequel to ItMoaS. Mad scientist Harry Potter, now twenty years old, is sent to the SGC to half-join SG-1, accompanying them on missions. However, this job, which was just supposed to be providing Harry with research and allow him to expand on his knowledge, will have him make grand discoveries about himself and that of the entire magical race. Harry/Tonks/possibly more
1. Chapter 1

**Your wait is over! It is here, Madness at the Gate! I thank you all for waiting patiently. I had a lot of trouble figuring out just how I was going to go about writing this. This is actually the seventh draft I've written! But bah! You didn't come here to listen to me babbling excuses. Please, enjoy this fic!**

–

General George S. Hammond was sitting at his desk in the SGC, deep within the Cheyenne Mountains. He didn't like to be strong-armed into doing things, so being forced to bring this British man to his base was annoying. However, he couldn't deny that having this person under his command would be an incredible asset. He gave an audible hum as he stared down at the file, scratching his bald head while trying to figure out where he should place him.

Three hours later, it had been decided, and Colonel Jack O'Neill entered Major Samantha Carter's lab, where he found the rest of his team waiting for him, consisting of Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c. O'Neill was reading the file in his hand with a look of resignation on his face.

"So, I'm guessing you've all heard that we'll be getting a new team member?" O'Neill said, getting nods from his team. "Apparently, this guy's pretty young, but smart as hell. He's Britain's leading expert on the Stargate, which doesn't exactly say much, but they've strong-armed Hammond into letting him come here."

"How young?" Daniel asked curiously.

"Says here he's no older than twenty," O'Neill said, reading the file. "Yet he's an M.D., he's got Ph.D's in Physics, Astrophysics, Chemistry, Biology, the works..." He looked up at the others, looking a bit confused. "How the hell can he have so many degrees, and be only twenty years old? I mean, it'd take longer to get so much as an M.D., wouldn't it?"

"Could his file have been faked?" Carter suggested.

"Doubtful," O'Neill said as he shook his head. "Oh, listen to this, his personality profile... 'Although he displays incredibly sadistic, hedonistic, and immoral traits, his genius is unparalleled. He is on a constant search for knowledge and understanding, and as such sees everything in existence, including himself, as research material. He also seems to have developed a surgical addiction in his quest for knowledge, having operated on himself in order to research the human body. Taking joy in the intimidation of others, he has left his stitches in.' It goes on like this for a while. The guy's a nutcase..."

"Can I see that, sir?" Carter asked, holding out her hand. O'Neill nodded and handed the file over to the Major, who took it and looked it over, her eyes landing on the accompanying picture.

The person in the picture looked, quite frankly, very intimidating. He had wild, raven black hair, droopy-looking, green eyes behind a pair of glasses, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, which was curved into a somewhat sadistic smirk, and he had stitching going across his face. His hand was holding onto an almost comically large, screw-like bolt that was sticking through his head. Seeing the picture, her eyes widened.

"Hey, this is Harry Potter!"

"Who?" Daniel asked, blinking.

"I am unfamiliar with that name," Teal'c added, sounding curious. Well, as curious as Teal'c could sound, anyway.

"This guy is supposed to be the smartest person of his generation," Carter explained, looking a bit excited as she looked up at her teammates. "He wrote a paper at seventeen on wormhole physics that I couldn't even dream of coming up with. He's been working with the British government on some top-secret project. I can only guess that it was the Stargate. And the fact that he's so good at it, even without having had an actual Stargate to study, should say a lot about him. He even invented a device that will stave off deterioration of his brain, keeping it in pristine condition until the day he dies."

"Well, that won't really mean squat if he'll try to cut us open in our sleep on his..." O'Neill started, then leaned over to look at the file again. "...constant search for knowledge."

"I don't think we have to worry about that, sir," Carter said, shaking her head. "I mean, he's bound to have found out all he can about the human body by now. I think he'd be more interested in what's out there."

She made a gesture for the ceiling.

"Then shouldn't we be worried that he might jeopardize intergalactic relations?" Daniel asked, clearing his throat. "I mean, if we meet a people who are vastly different from us... a people humans have never encountered before..."

"I am trusting you people to keep him on a tight leash," came General Hammond's voice as he stepped into the lab. Immediately, O'Neill and Carter stood at attention. "At ease," Hammond said, then nodded toward the file. "Whether we like it or not, Dr. Potter will be coming here, as relations between the US and Britain are a bit strained right now. You see, we never shared the secret of the Stargate with them. Instead, someone in the SGC leaked information about it. We couldn't deny it, as we were presented with evidence, and now they are forcing us to accept at least one of their experts, or there will be consequences."

"But why SG-1, sir?" O'Neill asked curiously. "I mean, if we don't want him here..."

"I placed Dr. Potter in SG-1 because despite the fact that he has been forced upon us, I won't deny that he has skills that will be very useful to your team. Not to mention the fact that you are probably the only ones I can trust to keep him under control. Also, it will show Britain that we see their sending of their expert as a blessing, instead of a curse."

SG-1 stood there in silence for a while, looking grim. Then, O'Neill picked up the file and once more scanned the man's psychological profile.

"Something tells me that I'm going to have to get a shrink after I've met this guy..." O'Neill muttered.

"Don't worry too much, Colonel," Hammond said reassuringly. "Although I am officially assigning him to SG-1, he will not be going out into the field with you very often. His expertise is best used here, and he will, occasionally, be making trips to Area 51 to help there."

Meanwhile, in an apartment not far from the Cheyenne Mountains, Dr. Harry James Potter, a twenty-year old scientist, who some, if not most, would call mad, put on his black shirt, buttoning it up to cover the stitching on his abdomen and chest. He left the top button undone, which showed the top of the vertical stitching, along with the X stitched into his throat. Of course, there were still other stitches also visible on him. The most eye-catching was the long stitching going from the top of the middle of his forehead, down to the bridge of his nose, and curving to the right, stopping an inch or two below his earlobe. He also had lots of stitching on his hands.

Picking up the lab coat that was hanging on a coat hook in the hallway, he put it on and looked himself over in the mirror. He stared at himself for a good minute or two, then smoothed out the coat and gave a wide grin.

"I'm ready," he said happily. Just then, footsteps were heard, and Harry looked to his left to see his girlfriend, Nymphadora 'Nym' Tonks, coming out of the bedroom, wearing nothing but a pair of panties and one of Harry's button-up shirts, which had the top two and bottom three buttons undone. She walked up to Harry and gave him a soft kiss while reaching up and turning the bolt in his head.

"You look ready," she said with a smile as she broke the kiss.

Harry's grin, if possible, widened even more as he stretched, giving off a pleased noise.

"I'm finally going to see the Stargate! Finally going to go out there, discover alien life, and study it!"

"It's about time, too," Tonks said, smirking. "You were starting to drive me nuts with your lack of research material."

"You sure you don't mind transferring to the American Auror Office?" Harry asked as he wrapped his arms around Tonks' waist and pulled her closer.

"Not as long as I'm in the same country as you," she said happily, getting up on her tippy-toes to give him another soft kiss.

"Well, technically, oftentimes we won't be in the same country. In fact, we'll be on different planets..."

"You know what I mean, you prat," Tonks said, smacking Harry on the chest.

Harry, as always, managed to skillfully leap to another topic without finishing the first.

"I wonder how Adrian is doing..."

"He's fine. Now, you're going to be late," Tonks said, pointing to the clock visible on the living room wall from the hallway. Harry stared at it for a couple of seconds, then nodded.

"I do believe I will be, if I don't leave right now," he said, humming. Did he want to get a quickie with Tonks, or did he want to be on time?

–

"Dr. Potter?"

Harry, who had been standing with his hands clasped behind his back, looked round to see a bald man, slightly overweight, with a no nonsense look on his face approaching him. He was wearing a spotless, short-sleeved uniform, and he didn't at all look happy to see Harry.

"I take it you're General Hammond?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. The man nodded as he reached Harry. Then, the man stopped, and his no-nonsense expression was replaced with surprise, as he stared at the bolt through Harry's head.

Harry stood there in silence for a few moments. Then, he cleared his throat, a small grin appearing on his face.

"It's a bit different, seeing it in person, inn'it?"

"I suppose it is..." Hammond mumbled, then shook his head to clear it, holding out his hand for Harry to shake, which he did. He had to admit, despite Hammond's clear dislike for him, the man was polite enough to at least shake his hand, which was admirable.

As the two let go of each other, Hammond gestured for Harry to follow him, and made his way down the concrete corridor leading into Cheyenne Mountains, heading for an elevator.

"I want to make it clear, Dr. Potter, you are not here by my choice."

"Obviously," Harry drawled, waving him off as they got into the elevator. "The only reason you allowed Britain's top expert on the Stargate to come here was because the secret of it leaked, and because you kept that secret from even your allies, relations are now a bit strained."

"Precisely."

"Well, General, believe it or not, I am not here to cause trouble for you. Quite on the contrary, I'm here to help."

"Are you really?" Hammond asked skeptically as the elevator headed steadily downward. "I've read your file, Doctor."

"And I've read yours, General. Files can be deceptive. For example, your file claims that you always follow the rules and proper procedures, but I can tell from just looking at you, and studying mission reports, that the file is very wrong."

"Are you trying to tell me that your file was wrong about you? That you are not a sadistic, hedonistic, immoral man on a constant search for knowledge and understanding, who also has a surgical addiction?"

"Oh, no, that was spot on. But it left out the fact that although I do many things for personal gain, I do obey my orders, provided, of course, that they aren't too outrageous."

Hammond hummed.

"Mind telling me why you were late?" he asked as the elevator beeped, the doors opening to show... more concrete corridors. Harry shrugged.

"I got a quickie from my girlfriend."

Obviously, Hammond had been expecting some form of apology, or a lie, as he flinched in surprise at Harry's bluntness. Harry took out a cigarette and lit it with a lighter, as he wasn't allowed to show that he was magic.

"There's no smoking in here," Hammond said. Harry, however, just clapped his hands happily.

"So! Where's the Stargate?"

"This way," Hammond said grumpily, leading the way down another corridor and through a door that revealed a set of stairs. "This is the Stargate Operations room," he said as they climbed the stairs and found themselves in a room that was filled with computers of various sizes. In the front of the room was a long window, which revealed a big room on the other side, and in that room was...

"The Stargate," Harry whispered in fascination as he moved over to the window, staring at the giant ring. He noticed that all activity in the room had ceased, and he looked around to find the people there staring at him. A muscle under his left eye twitched. "Yeah, I've got a bolt through my head, wanna fight about it?"

Everyone jumped at being caught staring and nervously went back to what they were doing before Harry came in.

A red light started blinking, and the Stargate suddenly started spinning, catching Harry's interest.

"Unscheduled off-world activation," a man, also bald, wearing glasses, said, sitting at one of the computers.

"Close the iris," Hammond said as he moved up to stand next to Harry, who stared at the gate as twenty overlapping blades swung outwards from within the Stargate, forming a shield over the opening in the Gate like a leaf shutter. Harry watched in fascination as the final chevron lit up, and a 'kawoosh' was heard from behind the iris. Hammond looked at Harry. "The iris is something we developed to avoid getting any unwanted visitors. It-"

"Hm..." Harry interrupted, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the iris. "To allow the wormhole to form, you'd need to keep it away from it, but close enough to the event horizon to not allow the traveler to materialize... You must keep it dangerously close for that. I'd say... three micrometers?"

"Less than three," Hammond said, sounding impressed with Harry's knowledge.

"Receiving SG-12's IDC, sir," the man at the computer said.

"Open the iris," Hammond commanded, and the man nodded, pressing his hand against a palm scanner. The iris opened, and within moments, four people came through, wearing military clothing.

"So, according to the Prime Minister, I'm supposed to become part of one of your SG teams occasionally?" Harry said, his hands behind his back.

"The President has informed me of that as well," Hammond said with a nod. "I have decided to place you with SG-1, where I think you will do the most good."

Harry blinked. "Good?"

Hammond turned to Harry and looked at him sternly.

"Doctor, while I don't like to be strong-armed into doing things, the fact remains that the English Prime Minister has nothing but the highest praise to give regarding your intellect and physical capabilities, along with your creativity. I consider that to be a great asset at my disposal, and will deal with it the way I see fit."

"I see..." Harry said, puffing on his cigarette thoughtfully. "Very well. However, if you think I'm going to wear a uniform, you're sorely mistaken."

"Somehow, I got the feeling that would be the case," Hammond said, nodding. "Now come on, I'll introduce you to your team. They are waiting in the briefing room."

"Lead the way, General," Harry said, gesturing for the door.

Hammond led Harry, instead of back down the stairs, up another set of stairs, through a corridor whose wall to the right was glass, and looking into it, Harry saw something like a conference room, with a long, black table in the center of it. At the table sat four people.

One was an older man with graying hair, but with every look of a seasoned soldier on his face. He had a scar on his left eyebrow, and had a look of a kind of bored amusement on his face. Next to him sat a black man, very muscular, with a gold emblem on his forehead and a soul patch on his chin.

Across from these two sat a man with short, brown hair and glasses, sitting next to a woman with medium-length, blond hair. Hammond led Harry through a door leading into the room, and as soon as they entered, the woman and the older man stood up.

"At ease," Hammond said, and the two sat down again. "SG-1, I would like you all to meet the newest member of your group, Dr. Harry Potter. You have all heard the circumstances around his placement in your team."

"Major Samantha Carter," Harry spoke up before Hammond could introduce them, walking up to Carter and holding out his hand. "I've read a lot about you."

"Likewise, Doctor," Carter said, smiling, though like everyone else Harry had shaken hands with, she was without a doubt a bit unnerved by the feeling of the stitches on his hand. "I'm a big fan of your work."

"All my work?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, a small smirk on his face.

"At least your work regarding wormhole physics."

"Well, you seem to be familiar with Major Carter already," Hammond said, then gestured for the rest of the team. "This is Dr. Daniel Jackson," he said, pointing at the man with the glasses. He waved. "This is Colonel Jack O'Neill," he introduced, pointing at the older man. Then, he pointed to the black man. "And this is Teal'c."

The black man bowed his head in greeting.

"Pleasure," Harry said, reaching up and turning the bolt. He saw that Jackson looked a bit fascinated with it, while O'Neill looked like he didn't know whether to be fascinated or disgusted. "So!" Harry said, clapping his hands together again. "What now?"

"Now, you will need to meet Dr. Fraiser for a physical," Hammond told Harry, who had to suppress a twitch. He got one not too long ago, so getting one again was annoying. "I'll take you to the infirmary."

–

"I still can't believe you've cut yourself like this..."

Dr. Janet Fraiser was stern, yet kind-looking woman with medium-length, brown hair. She wore a lab coat, which made her all the more attractive to Harry, but never mind that... Harry grinned.

"All in the name of science, I assure you."

"And the reason why the stitches are still there?"

"Intimidation purposes."

"I see..." Fraiser muttered peering into Harry's eyes. She seemed to be looking for something, and apparently found it, because she leaned back and looked him up and down. "Are you sure you're alright, Mr. Potter?"

"Don't worry, the bolt doesn't hurt."

"No, that's not what I mean. Your eyes look a little... distant."

"Oh, you mean, am I alright mentally?" Harry said in realization, and Fraiser nodded. "Well, Doc, I'm as healthy as I'll ever be."

"How is that, anyway?" Fraiser asked curiously. "I mean, you're healthier than any of the soldiers on this base, which is saying a lot, considering you're a scientist, not a soldier."

"Well, you know what they say, Doc, a healthy soul resides in a sound mind, and a sound body."

"I have actually never heard anyone say that," Fraiser admitted, and Harry furrowed his brow.

"Really? Oh yeah, I think I'm the one who came up with that saying." Harry laughed, while Fraiser just stared at him strangely.

"I ask again, are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm perfectly fine," Harry said. Then, he shrugged. "Although, I should stop going long periods of time without sleep," he admitted slowly, getting off the hospital bed and starting to put on his shirt. "Are we done here?"

"We're done, for now," Fraiser said. "Oh, first I'd like a blood sample."

Later found Harry poking his head into Samantha Carter's lab. He reached up and knocked once. Carter, who had been peering through a microscope, looked up and smiled at seeing Harry, who took a step inside.

"What are you working on?" Harry asked curiously.

"Oh, you know, this and that," Carter said with a shrug as Harry walked up to her, gesturing for the microscope.

"You mind if I...?"

"Oh, go right ahead," Carter said, moving to the side to allow Harry to peer through the microscope, humming.

"This is my blood," he said, seeing the very familiar blood under the microscope.

"Yes, it is," Carter said, watching Harry closely. "It's not normal."

"So it isn't."

"Care to tell me what all those anomalies Dr. Fraiser found in your blood are?"

"Very well," Harry said, lifting his head from the microscope to look at Carter, a small smile on his face. "My blood isn't one hundred percent human."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, I changed it," Harry said with a shrug. "I have always been interested in improvement. Making a man stronger than normal, helping him remain strong forever, helping him remain smart, and so on. So, I discovered in my studies that humans are inherently very weak, despite our great potential for power. I started researching DNA. I found a way to implant other DNA into my genetic code. In my case, I used a small amount of spider DNA."

Carter's brow furrowed.

"What did that accomplish?"

"Ever read Spider-Man, Major?" Harry asked, smirking. "Now, I don't have a nifty spider sense, and I can't stick to walls, but I do have incredible physical abilities now."

"So that's why you're in such an amazing condition," Carter spoke in realization. "That... That's amazing. I mean, people have attempted it in the past, but never fully succeeded. Do you realize how this can help mankind?"

"But I won't let it," Harry said, which made Carter's eyes widen.

"What?"

"Well, first of all, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to share my method, as it's been classified. And second of all, it wouldn't be good if the research ended up in the wrong hands. I won't risk it."

Of course, this was a blatant lie. In all honesty, he only refused to share his research because he was an incredibly self-absorbed person, and the thought of having more people be similar to him was appalling. He liked being unique, after all.

"I see," Carter said slowly, apparently buying Harry's excuse. "They say you are very creative, Doctor, and-"

"Ah," Harry said, holding up a hand to stop Carter from speaking. "Just Harry."

"Harry," Carter corrected herself, nodding. "They say you're very creative. Your file said nothing about it, but should I assume you have some technological expertise?"

"Hey, if I can imagine it, I can pretty much build it," Harry said, grinning. "I'm very accomplished when it comes to technology," he admitted, then clapped his hands together. "So, any upcoming missions?"

"Well, Colonel O'Neill, Daniel and I will be going to the Tok'ra homeworld to set a date for a meeting between the High Councilor and the President in two hours," Carter said, making Harry blink.

"I'm not coming? Why?"

"Well..." Carter trailed off, apparently not wanting to say what Harry knew she was going to say.

"You think I wouldn't be very good for intergalactic relations. Since I've never met a Tok'ra before, you think that I'm going to capture one of them, to cut them open and study them?" he guessed, getting a flinch of surprise from Carter, who cleared her throat and nodded. Harry stared at her for a good ten seconds, then nodded. "You're not wrong."

Harry took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, making Carter clear her throat.

"Um, you're not allowed to smoke in here."

"So people keep telling me," Harry said, but making no move to put out his cigarette. He gave Carter a grin, then waved at her before leaving the lab.

–

Comfort was very important for Harry James Potter. He couldn't find it wherever he sat or lay. He needed familiarity. That was why it wouldn't have been surprising for anyone who knew him to see that Harry had brought his own operating table and caster-wheel chair into the lab provided for him at the SGC.

"Harry Potter."

"Mm?"

"What are you doing?"

Harry, who was currently laying on his operating table, slowly opened his eyes at Teal'c's question. His shirt was off, as was his lab coat, since he couldn't clean blood off it with magic while in the presence of Muggles, and a scalpel was sticking out of his chest, where it had been for the last forty-ish minutes.

"Oh, you know," Harry said with a shrug, "I got bored just sitting here, so I decided to give myself some localized anesthetics and poke around inside myself. But then I realized that I've already done it so much that I wouldn't find anything new in there, so I got bored again."

"Is that not painful?" Teal'c asked curiously as he walked up to Harry, staring down at the scalpel sticking out of his chest.

"Now that the anesthetics have worn off, you'd think so, but it's really not," Harry mumbled, staring up at the ceiling. "It's very simple, really. Just some minor manipulation of the signals going from the nerves to the brain, basically rewiring them to translate the pain as pleasure."

"So the sensation is pleasurable to you?"

"It was, but ten minutes in, it started to dull."

"Then why have you not removed it?"

Harry shrugged again and said, "Dunno. Got used to it, I suppose..." He rose to a sitting position and yanked the scalpel out, surprising Teal'c with the fact that the wound didn't bleed. "So, did you need something?"

"Indeed, Harry Potter. I understand that you have written a long theory regarding the effects of a symbiote on a Jaffa warrior?"

"I have," Harry said with a nod. "Of course, it's all theory, as I haven't been allowed to study a Jaffa or even a symbiote yet."

"Do you believe yourself capable of coming up with a way to rid the Jaffa of their reliance on a symbiote?" Teal'c asked curiously. He spoke in a monotone, but Harry could tell that he sounded hopeful.

"Well, if anyone is able to to it, it'd be me. But like I said, I haven't had any real research material yet," Harry said, shrugging as he hopped off the operating table, putting his shirt back on, followed by his lab coat. "How about I study you and your symbiote?"

"What would it require?" Teal'c asked.

"Well, first, I'd like a blood sample from you and the snake," Harry said with a gesture toward Teal'c stomach, where he knew that the symbiote pouch was located on a Jaffa. "From there, I should be able to isolate the properties of the symbiote that holds up your immune system. Hopefully, of course. I won't know until I've tried it. If I can do that, I should be able to synthesize a proper replacement."

As he lit a cigarette, he noticed that Teal'c raised an eyebrow, looking from the cigarette to the 'No Smoking' sign on the wall.

"Are you aware, Harry Potter, that there is no smoking allowed on this base?"

Harry hummed, staring at the sign.

"You know, you're right," he said. "We'll have to do something about that."

With that, Harry walked up to the sign and tore it off the wall, before throwing it into the trash bin, turning toward Teal'c and giving him a big grin.

"Problem solved, yes?"

Teal'c looked amused. Well, as amused as Teal'c could look. "Indeed," he said, nodding slowly.

"Well now, let's take those blood samples, shall we?"

–

"I understand something went wrong?" Harry asked as he stood in Dr. Fraiser's lab, looking at a computer monitor, in front of which Fraiser herself sat.

"You can say that again," Fraiser said as she tapped away at her keyboard. "Apparently, Major Graham attempted to assassinate the Tok'ra High Councilor. He failed, then took his own life. The Tok'ra believe he was something called a Za'tarc, or something. Kind of like a sleeper agent in modern fiction, who has been exposed to mind control in order to involuntarily perform a duty for the enemy, oftentimes assassinations."

"So, he wasn't responsible for it? He was just a pawn?"

"Pretty much. That's the theory, anyway," Fraiser said. "I have performed an autopsy, and I found some unidentifiable residue from the explosion, but no indication that he was under any kind of chemical influence."

"There's more than one way to control someone's mind," Harry said. "How was his brain?"

"Scattered."

"Ah. Too bad, I would have wanted to study it," Harry said, humming.

"Why?"

"Well, some mind control techniques, especially advanced hypnosis, leave traces in the mind for anyone to see if they just look hard enough. I have studied the brain for a long time, intensively. See, one's memory process is made up of three stages: First is something called 'encoding.' In this stage we must change the information so that we may put the memory into the encoding process. 'Storage' is the second memory stage. This entails that we maintain information over periods of time. Finally the third process is the 'retrieval' of information that we have stored. We must locate it and return it to our consciousness."

"So?" Fraiser asked, shrugging.

"Well, see, I have learned how to 'decode' the memories, so to speak, breaking them down, studying them, and then building them up from scratch with an outside source. Now, when false memories are planted via hypnosis, or any other form of brainwashing, it doesn't actually replace the memory that's already there. It merely, if one were to compare memories to a line at the cinema, pushes the existing memory out of the line to take its place. The old memory is still there, so it is possible to decode and retrieve it, provided one can find the false memory."

"But what does that have to do with Major Graham?" Fraiser asked curiously. "I mean, even if you can do that, you can't retrieve memories from an exploded brain."

"That's true, but think tactically. If you were a Goa'uld, and you had managed to turn an enemy into a... Za'tarc, was it?" Harry asked, and Fraiser nodded. "Well, if you were a Goa'uld, and had made a Za'tarc... would you really make just one?"

"You want to check the other members of Major Graham's team?"

"I do."

"Can you really extract memories?" Fraiser asked doubtfully.

"Although I do love to brag, I don't brag about things I cannot do," Harry said simply. "I don't know General Hammond very well, and he doesn't seem to like me. And given my file, I find it doubtful that he will allow me to do this. That's why I was hoping you can recommend it. He seems to like you enough."

Fraiser leaned back in her chair, staring at Harry, who gave her a grin. She turned to the computer monitor, watching it for a moment, then looked back at Harry and nodded.

"Alright, I'll take it up with General Hammond, but I sure hope you know what you're doing."

So, thanks to Fraiser, half an hour later found Harry stepping into Hammond's office, where he found the General sitting behind his desk, looking contemplative.

"General," Harry said, knocking on the door.

"You know, people normally knock _before_ they enter a room, Doctor," Hammond said, looking up at Harry, who simply grinned at him. In a rare show of respect, he hadn't actually lit the cigarette that was currently dangling from his mouth.

"Yeah, well, no one has ever accused me of being normal," he reasoned with a shrug. "So, I understand you talked to Dr. Fraiser?"

"I did. She seems to believe that you are capable of doing what you claim to be capable of," Hammond said, staring hard at Harry. "Are you telling the truth, Doctor?"

"I am. I have used my machine three times in the past, and it has worked flawlessly. Of course, its ability to discover and break down false memories is merely theoretical, since I haven't had the opportunity to test that function yet, but I believe that it can be done. It has worked flawlessly when it comes to copying memories."

Slowly, Hammond nodded.

"The Tok'ra are expected to arrive in..." Hammond looked up at the clock hanging over the door. "...twenty minutes, with Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, and Dr. Jackson. They are bringing a device they claim to be a Za'tarc detector. How soon can you get your device set up?"

"If I leave the base right away? Half an hour," Harry informed Hammond, who nodded.

"Then I will be informing the Tok'ra that we will be testing your device before we test theirs."

"I'm sure they will be thrilled, sir," Harry said with a small smirk on his face. "Well then, General, I'll leave right away."

"I'll inform security that you have been given leave, and to expect you back shortly."

Harry nodded.

"General."

With that, he left Hammond's office.

–

Twenty minutes after meeting with Harry, General Hammond stood in the Gate Room, watching the active gate with Teal'c, as O'Neill, Jackson, Carter, and the Tok'ra Anise and Martouf stepped through it, Martouf carrying a briefcase-like blue-and-bronze object that was undoubtedly the Za'tarc detector.

"Colonel," Hammond greeted O'Neill, before looking at the Tok'ra. "Martouf, Anise, on behalf of the SGC, I want to offer my sincerest apologies and condolences for the lives of the lost Tok'ra."

"High Councilor Per'sus also sends regrets for the men of the SGC that were lost," Martouf said with a solemn nod. "We consider Major Graham as much a victim as anyone."

"All outstanding SG teams are being recalled for screening and placed on a twenty-four hour watch," Hammond informed them, to which Anise nodded.

"I would like to begin with the remaining members of Major Graham's team. There was obviously opportunity to program him on a recent mission."

"Actually, the latest addition to our forces, Dr. Harry Potter, believes that he has a device that should work fine in rooting out any Za'tarc," Hammond said, making O'Neill and Jackson blink.

"He does?" they both asked in surprise, in perfect unison. Hammond nodded.

"He does. We would like to use his device before we rely on this Za'tarc detector," he said, gesturing for the item in Martouf's hand.

"Well, if Dr. Potter possesses such a device, I would very much like to see it," Anise said, looking pleasantly surprised.

"This way," Hammond said as he gestured for the way out of the Gate Room. "Dr. Potter is currently setting up in lab five, if you'd like to meet him."

Martouf and Anise nodded and followed Hammond out of the Gate Room, along with Carter and Jackson.

They headed straight for lab five, where Harry was busy hooking wires up to a chair, leading from a very futuristic-looking computer, with a very slim monitor. The computer didn't have a mouse, but instead a round steel device that had a rubbery-looking substance covering the center of it. The 'hard drive' was very large, about twice the size of a normal hard drive, to which all the wires were connected.

"Doctor," Hammond said, making Harry look up, an unlit cigarette once more dangling from his mouth.

"General," he greeted with a nod, then looked to the Tok'ra. "And am I right to assume that you are... Anise... and... Martouf of the Tok'ra?"

"We are," Martouf said, as all three gave each other small bows. "We understand you have invented a form of memory recall device?"

"Something like that," Harry said with a nod, then looked to Anise, who was looking at him strangely. "Is there a problem?"

"Oh, no problem. I am merely wondering what that is on your face?" Anise said, gesturing for the stitches.

"Well, in my teenage years, I was about as interested in the human body as I am now, if not more so," Harry said, gesturing for the stitches as well, and in doing so showing off the stitching on his hand. "Books can only teach you so much. I found it a better way to learn to actually take a proper look at the human body. Of course, no one would allow a fourteen-year old to slice them open, so I had to do it to myself."

"I see you are very dedicated to your work," Anise said, sounding impressed, which made Harry chuckle.

"That's the first time I've heard someone drop that comment in regards to my stitches. Most people just call me mad."

"I wonder why," Jackson said sarcastically.

"So, would you mind explaining how this device works?" Anise asked as she walked up to the device and gestured for it.

"Well, basically, the chair has a lot of technology built into it, so it's not just for comfort," Harry said, leaning against the desk on which the computer had been set up. "The chair is designed specifically to 'hack' into the brain, hooking into the neuronal synapses in the brain. The signals it picks up are sent to the computer, where my program interprets each signal, identifying what signal belongs to what sound, sight, et cetera."

"And you created this device?" Anise asked, sounding surprised, and Harry's eyes, which had been happy and warm, suddenly lost some of their warmth, and he gave her a scolding look.

"Are you suggesting that I would have stolen this technology and labeled it mine?" he asked, clearly sounding insulted, from what Hammond could tell.

"No, of course not," Anise said quickly. She sounded a bit nervous, and Hammond could tell why. The scolding look in Harry's eyes looked incredibly dangerous. From what Hammond could understand, Harry Potter was a man who took great pride in his work, and for someone to even insinuate that his work was not his own... Well, Hammond could understand why he would be offended.

"Are you just about ready, Doctor?" Hammond asked, hoping to diffuse the situation by diverting Harry's attention. Harry held the stare for a few seconds longer, then looked at Hammond.

"Just about. I just need to boot it."

"Why haven't we heard of this device before?" Carter asked as Harry started tapping away at the keyboard in front of the monitor.

"Well, the British government, who funded my experiments, didn't feel like this device was very ethical to use. Something about it being an invasion of privacy, or something trivial like that..." Harry muttered, giving a dismissive gesture with his hand, as though the concept of invasion of privacy was something he couldn't give a damn about.

The screen flickered to life, and a bunch of windows opened up, with texts that Hammond believed he wouldn't be able to understand even if he studied computer programming for the next five years.

"There we go. It's ready," Harry said with a smile. "How about you send in the first subject?"

Hammond nodded. "We'll be in the observation room," he said, gesturing for the glass behind Harry, showing the interior of a room with many chairs.

Five minutes later, Harry was alone in the lab, while Hammond, Carter, Jackson, O'Neill, Teal'c, Martouf and Anise were sitting in the observation room, watching as a young woman wearing military fatigues came into the lab, escorted by a member of the base security force.

"Welcome, Lieutenant Astor," Harry said with a small grin on his face, which did nothing to calm Astor's nerves, judging by the look on her face. He gestured for the chair. "Please, have a seat and relax."

Astor gulped as she sat down in the chair, her eyes widening in alarm when Harry strapped her arms to the armrests. He then strapped what looked like a rubber headband to her head, with several wires coming out of it, which were connected to the chair.

"Now," Harry said, walking around the desk to sit down behind the monitor, placing his hands on the rubbery substance on the 'mouse,' "I want you to think about your recent mission to P6Y-325. I'll handle the rest."

He slowly pressed his fingers down on the substance seemingly randomly as a large amount of data started raining down in one of the open windows like in that movie The Matrix. Harry was staring hard at the data, and now and then he would press down on the substance, and a number or letter would be transferred from the window with the data to another window, where it linked together with others to form what looked like a chemical formula. The process went on for about five minutes, Harry picking out one number, letter, or symbol at a time, building a larger and larger formula, until he had what looked like the most complex net of numbers and letters in history.

Harry took out a cigarette when he was done and put it in his mouth, but didn't light it, simply staring at the net, seeing something that Hammond couldn't even hope to see.

"What's he doing?" O'Neill whispered to Carter, who shrugged.

"If I am correct," Anise spoke up, apparently having heard O'Neill, "then each symbol, letter, or digit that was taken from the flow of data is a signal stored in the brain. I believe that Dr. Potter's device interprets these signals and translates them to various sounds, smells, sights, and so on that are stored in the memory. What I believe he is doing now is, if the device truly can find false memories, searching the memory patterns for anything that stands out. Something that doesn't belong there."

Harry, in the lab, moved his fingers across the rubbery substance, zooming in on a portion of the net, tilting his head to the side. He drew a circle with his finger, and a piece of the net was cut from it and placed in another window, separate from the rest. Then, he started the process again, pulling different symbols and such from the rain of data, filling in the now blank space in the net. After another couple of minutes, Harry nodded to himself and closed the window of data, having a completed net of symbols.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," he told Astor as he got up and unstrapped her from the chair, nodding to the security officer, who nodded back and escorted her out of the lab. Harry looked up at Hammond and made a 'come here' gesture with his finger. Hammond, SG-1, and Anise and Martouf made their way out of the observation room and into the lab.

"She's a Za'tarc," Harry told them, gesturing for them to come around the desk so that they could see the monitor. "Here's what she remembers of the mission," he said as he copied the net and carried it over to the portion he had cut out of it earlier, leaving the recently added portion, so that it blended perfectly with the previously cut piece. He pressed down on the 'mouse,' and another window opened up. It looked like a video, but seen from a first-person perspective, seen out of Astor's eyes. "I had to cut a lot of what the Lieutenant saw, as the eyes see things from a perspective much wider than this screen can show, but..."

He made a gesture for the video, then seemed to fast-forward past where Astor's team met the people on the planet, up until when Astor looked up and saw Goa'uld Death Gliders flying overhead, attacking the village. A firefight broke out in the night, and Astor and her team fled into the forest. They watched as Astor reached a clearing with her team, where SG-15 was already engaged in a firefight with a large amount of Jaffa. Astor shot a Jaffa, and her teammates shot some more, creating an opening in the ranks and allowing them to escape to the Stargate, at which point Harry paused the video.

"This is a false memory. I managed to find it because some of the data I recovered from her brain was very similar to each other, but written differently. This is because a false memory doesn't erase the existing memory, but rather pushes it out of the way to take its place. Or rather, it lays itself on top of the existing memory and impersonates it. Here's the real memory."

He started another video, fast-forwarding to the firefight in the clearing. Instead of shooting a Jaffa, however, Astor was hit by a Zat, along with the rest of her team, which caused the screen to go dark and immediately switch over to a blurry image of a cell inside a Goa'uld mothership. Harry paused the video and looked to the others.

"There's more, but I don't think you want to see the torture and brainwashing involved in their conditioning," Harry said. He himself didn't look at all disgusted, but rather fascinated. Nonetheless, he fast-forwarded again to show a Jaffa, bearing the mark of Heru'ur. The Jaffa was speaking to Astor in Goa'uld, and Hammond, nonplussed, looked to the three people in the room who, to his knowledge, spoke the language.

"He is giving her orders," Martouf spoke up, narrowing his eyes as he listened. "He is telling her to assassinate... the leader of earth."

"Well, since earth doesn't have a single official leader," Harry spoke up, finally lighting his cigarette, "I can only assume that he means the President."

Hammond's eyes widened. "Is there any way to remove the programming?"

"Well, this device hasn't exactly been designed for that, but give me two hours, and I should have been able to modify it," Harry said, patting the hard drive. "If I can find the materials for it, of course."

"What do you need?" Hammond asked immediately.

"I'll give you a list," Harry said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "But first, we should make sure there are no other Za'tarcs in our midst."

Hammond nodded slowly, agreeing with Harry's statement.

–

"And that's number three," Harry said as he recorded the memory pattern onto the hard drive and opening up a new file. He had just finished with the last member of Astor's team, who incidentally was the last member of the SG teams to be tested. He had only discovered three Za'tarcs, Astor, Captain Blasdale, and Sergeant Lewis, all members of Major Graham's team. No one else tested positive.

"Then you should get to work on modifying the device," Hammond said.

"Hold on a minute," Harry said, then made a gesture for the two Tok'ra in the room. "They need to be tested as well."

"I have not been in any situations where I would be vulnerable to the Goa'uld Za'tarc technology," Anise spoke, to which Harry slowly raised an eyebrow, trying to discern if Anise was telling the truth. Figuring that she was, he looked to Martouf.

"Alright, you, in the chair."

Martouf looked ready to object, but a look from Harry made him comply and allow himself to be strapped to the chair.

Since Martouf had lived a lot longer than a human being, there was a lot more data to search through, so Martouf's testing took near half an hour, during which Harry managed to smoke no less than six cigarettes in boredom.

"Bingo," Harry spoke once he was done, smirking at Martouf. "Glad to see humans aren't the only ones to succumb to this thing."

"Wait, are you saying...?" Martouf muttered, and Harry nodded. Hammond made a gesture, and two security officers came in, escorting Martouf out of the room. Anise looked very alarmed at having found out that one of their own was a Za'tarc.

"I'll get to modifying this thing right away," Harry said, having already given Hammond a list of the materials he'd need, which were on their way.

"See to it, Doctor," Hammond said, nodding, before leaving the room with the others. Now alone, Harry lit another cigarette, before getting to work taking apart the hard drive.

Two hours later, Harry slapped the shell back onto the hard drive and booted the memory device, which he had yet to name, and started running diagnostics. His fifty-seventh cigarette of the day was dangling, unlit, from his mouth. He had already sent word to General Hammond, and nodded when he saw the man enter the observation room with Anise and the rest of SG-1. Moments later, Astor entered the room with two security officers. She was once more strapped to the chair, and Harry got to work.

"I'm going to let you keep the false memory that has been implanted in your head," he informed the Lieutenant as he tapped away on the keyboard. "You went through a lot of pain during your captivity with the Goa'uld, enough to shatter your mind in order to manipulate it. I doubt you'd want to relive that sensation, so..." Shrugging, he placed his hand on the 'mouse,' and started going through new data that started flowing in one of the windows. He studied the data for a good five minutes, before he found what he was looking for, pressing down on the mouse. A string of letters, numbers, and symbols moved from the flow to an empty window. Once there, he circled the string of data, and then moved his finger over to the keyboard, tapping the 'Delete' key, watching as it vanished from sight.

"And we're done," he announced pleasantly. "Next!"

Repeating the procedure with Captain Blasdale, Sergeant Lewis, and Martouf, Harry rose from his chair and stretched lazily when he was done, a pleasant smile on his face.

"Well, I'd say that was a great success!" he said happily as he stepped out of the lab to find Hammond, SG-1, and the two Tok'ra outside, waiting for him. "Wouldn't you say?"

"How did you remove the programming?" Anise wanted to know.

"Oh, it was fairly simple. I merely had to recalibrate the scanners on it, so that it picked up conscious and subconscious thoughts, rather than memory signals."

"Such a device sounds like it is far beyond the capacity of the human brain to create," Martouf said, to which Harry just gave a grin.

"Well, I am an unparalleled genius, and I have never been good with the concept of 'impossible.' It just makes me take it as a challenge."

"Thank you, Doctor, for your help and hard work," Hammond said, appearing to be looking at Harry in a whole new light.

"It was no problem. It gave me the opportunity to properly test my device. Now!" Harry clapped his hands together and rubbed them together, humming. "I am famished."

With that, Harry left.

–

**Well, here it is, the first chapter of the sequel! Let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**ZnK here, second chapter is out! Hopefully, I will be able to maintain a steady flow of updates. I try to stay one or two chapters ahead at all times, so that even if I get stuck on something, I can keep posting despite that. Thanks to Magical Fan18 for coming up with the name for Harry's memory recall device! Go check out his stories if you want!**

–

_Journal, September 3rd, 2000,_

_Started looking into Teal'c's blood, and that of his symbiote, which goes under the designation 'Junior.' I would have begun sooner, but... circumstances arose. During a routine mission to P4X-639, while I was on P4X-655 to do some research on a ruin of the Ancients, SG-1 encountered an alien archaeologist named Malakai, who was operating an Ancient device. Malakai had his own motives and caused a time loop, where only Colonel Jack O'Neill and Teal'c noticed it. They managed to convince the rest of SGC of the time loop, and it was discovered that a large number of planets were also stuck in the time loop._

_Unfortunately, I was not on one of those planets._

_I found myself dialing home on many occasions, and finding that I could not. For five months, the time loop repeated itself. _Five months_! Thankfully, only a day had officially passed on earth, so I was spared Nym's wrath. I had originally feared that she would be incredibly angry with me, but upon being informed of the situation, I was pleased to learn that it hadn't been five months on earth._

_Regardless, I am quite obviously agitated. On another note, I found the time to completely translate the writing on the ruins._

_It was useless to me..._

–

_Journal, September 13th, 2000,_

_When about to go to a mission to find a planet where we could transplant the Enkaran people, we were stopped by the fact that our Gate wouldn't activate. Upon inspection, we discovered that there was an energy spike in our power log eight minutes and four seconds before we tried dialing out. We deduced that this meant that another Gate was being used on earth. After we searched for a corresponding seismic tremor, we discovered that the other Gate was in Siberia._

_Pentagon contacted Russia, who admitted that they had a Stargate. Renowned Russian scientist, Svetlana Markova, convinced Moscow to allow SG-1 to investigate the base with the Stargate, as they had lost communications._

_I sat this mission out. I found that it sounded incredibly boring. It was, from what I heard, and it would have been incredibly frustrating for me had I come, because they encountered an alien life form that I would have been unable to study._

_I have managed to break down Junior's blood and isolate the properties recovered to keep a Jaffa alive. Will explain more later._

–

"You do not seem happy, Harry Potter," Teal'c spoke as he stood in front of Harry, who sat backwards on his caster-wheel chair, observing the Goa'uld larva that was poking out of the pouch in his stomach. "I would have assumed that seeing a Goa'uld up close would have excited you."

"Yeah, well, it excites me alright," Harry said as he poked the Goa'uld, which had been nicknamed Junior by O'Neill. "However, I'm still a bit grumpy, you know? Being stranded on a distant planet for five months because some idiot placed a large amount of planets in a time-loop, and then missing out on a chance to study an alien life form will do that to you."

Rolling away from Teal'c, over to his computer, he gestured for Teal'c to approach him. Teal'c allowed Junior to slink back into the pouch and pulled down his shirt. Harry tapped the screen.

"Anyway, from what I can tell, your genes are missing certain... let's call them building blocks, that a human has. These blocks maintain the body's immune system. From what I understand, a Jaffa's immune system starts to fail when they enter puberty, if they don't get a symbiote?"

"Indeed," Teal'c said, nodding.

"Well, I can only guess that your body once had these blocks, but they broke down due to the Goa'uld's genetic manipulation of your people long ago. This caused a need for certain traits that your symbiote would give you. The symbiote has properties in its blood that merges with yours, building up your incredible defense against diseases, your strength, and your longevity."

"What else have you learned, Harry Potter?"

"I have managed to isolate the properties required to keep your body functioning without a symbiote," Harry said, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag. He exhaled slowly, then looked up at Teal'c. "But I haven't yet figured out a way to synthesize it. I remain confident that I will find a way to do so, however."

"Take your time, Harry Potter," Teal'c said, bowing his head to Harry, who waved him off.

Teal'c left the lab, and Harry went back to the computer, bringing up the information on the properties of the symbiote's blood that would help Teal'c. He selected a certain part of the chemical makeup of the properties and tapped his finger against the screen.

"What, exactly, are you?"

The chemicals were completely foreign to earth. Even Harry couldn't even recognize it, and he had access to both the magical world _and_ the Muggle world.

Harry didn't have time to contemplate further, as he had to get ready to go off-world. He didn't have a mission yet, but he liked to be prepared. While everyone else tended to bring large packs with supplies, and bring weapons, all Harry needed could fit in his pockets. He only needed his surgical tools, his syringes, various anesthetics and sedatives and such, and various supplies required to draw samples of things he may find off-world.

The klaxons started sounding suddenly, making Harry blink as he looked away from the monitor.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" came Davis' voice through the speakers. Harry shot out of his chair and left the lab, rushing to the Gate Room and getting there in time to see the iris open. Moments later, Hammond, O'Neill, Carter, and Teal'c entered the Gate Room as well, just in time for a very scruffy-looking archaeologist, Robert Rothman, to come through the Gate. He was out of breath, barely able to breathe, let alone tank, as he clutched a stitch in his side, proceeding down the ramp.

"Dr. Rothman, what is it? What happened?" Hammond asked, alarmed, as he noticed the state Rothman was in.

Rothman was too out of breath to quickly respond. He made some gestures with his hand, then sat down on the edge of the ramp, giving off exhausted noises.

"Where's the rest of your team?" O'Neill asked curiously.

"Loeder's dead!" Rothman exclaimed, finally able to speak. "Some sort of indigenous life form... It killer Loeder! The rest of my team went after it!"

O'Neill's eyes widened in alarm, and he muttered, "Daniel?"

"No, no, no, it _took_ Daniel!" Rothman said, still in a panic. "That's why the others went after it."

"How long ago?" Carter asked.

"I don't know, maybe... three hours? I... Daniel is still alive! That thing was dragging him!"

"You saw it?" O'Neill asked.

"Just for a second..." Rothman muttered, and O'Neill narrowed his eyes a fraction, looking at General Hammond.

"Request permission to lead search and rescue, sir?"

Hammond gave a nod, but before he could speak, Rothman said, "But if I had to guess, I'd say it was an Unas!"

"A what?" O'Neill asked, looking shocked, while Harry perked up. He had heard of the Unas before, the kind that the Goa'uld originally used as hosts...

"It was like that... that thing you described in your mission report from Cimmeria!" Rothman explained, still out of breath, as he took out his inhaler and took a breath from it.

"Basically, we're talking about a Goa'uld with teeth and claws, sir," O'Neill informed Hammond, who looked a bit confused.

"Not necessarily, O'Neill," Teal'c said.

"What do you mean?" Hammond asked.

"Daniel believed that 888 was the planet from which all Goa'uld symbiotes originated," Carter supplied, to which Teal'c nodded.

"It may be that there are Unas there that have never been taken as hosts."

"We're still talking about a big, stinky monster!" O'Neill said. It was obvious that he didn't care one bit about what kind of creature it was, just that it had taken Daniel. "Makes no difference."

"Indeed it does," Teal'c said simply. Getting a look from O'Neill, he explained, "These Unas will be far more primitive, and lack the regenerative powers of Unas we have previously encountered."

"So, what would a primitive Unas want with Daniel?" Carter asked.

"I can think of a few things," Harry said. Unfortunately, none of the things he could think of had a happy ending. Well, for Daniel, at least. The Unas would be very happy regardless of what it did with him. It was all a matter of perspective, he supposed.

"Recommend units one and two, P-90's," O'Neill said to Hammond, getting back on track. "I also recommend we take off right now, sir."

"You have a go," Hammond said immediately.

"Thank you!"

–

Half an hour later, Harry was once more standing in the Gate Room. Well, in all honesty, he never left it. O'Neill, Carter, Teal'c, and four others stood with him as a UAV drone was launched into the active Stargate to search for Daniel. O'Neill moved up to the top of the ramp to address them.

"Alright, listen up! We're a little pressed for time here, so this is going to have to serve as your mission briefing," he said as he looked around at the rescue team. "Daniel Jackson has been dragged off by a creature called an Unas. This is a search and rescue. Any questions?"

"Err, yes, I have one," came Rothman's voice as he entered the Gate Room, in the process of putting on his tactical vest and pack. "When, exactly, were you going to tell me when we were leaving?"

O'Neill slowly put his cap on, staring at Rothman.

"I wasn't," he said simply.

"Oh..." Rothman muttered, surprised.

"Move out!" O'Neill ordered, and the rescue team moved up the ramp and through the Gate.

It was daytime on P3X-888 as they came through, and Harry immediately looked up at the sky, taking in the air. The air was clean, much cleaner than on earth. But other than that, there was no discernible difference. Well, the air was a bit, a _bit_, heavier.

While O'Neill talked to Sergeant Coburn, Harry took a few steps away from the DHD and focused his right eyes, closing his left. As he looked around, he saw several life signs here and there, but only one that he was able to recognize as Daniel's 'soul.' He had seen in many times before, so he could easily recognize it. The soul was being led by an even larger soul, about twice the size of Daniel's. Powerful soul meant a powerful body.

"Hey," Harry said, turning to look at O'Neill, who had been talking to Teal'c. He raised his hand and pointed in the direction he'd seen Daniel's soul. "Daniel's this way."

"How do you know that?" O'Neill asked skeptically.

"Do you doubt me?"

"Well, there's the fact that you have no experience in tracking, so..." O'Neill said, shaking his head. Then, he looked at his Jaffa friend. "Teal'c, take point. Pierce, you've got our six!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Rothman, you're with me."

Rothman looked up from blowing his nose and followed O'Neill, while Harry sighed. Things were better in the magic world. There, he was the Man-Who-Won, so he could say whatever he wanted, and people would believe him. If he had told a wizard to go the way he pointed, the wizard would have done so without question.

"Ah well," Harry said with a shrug as he followed O'Neill. If the Unas killed Daniel, that would give O'Neill all the more reason to kill it, which would allow Harry to bring it back for study.

They walked for near an hour, maybe an hour and a half, before anything interesting happened. Carter, who was reading a device in her hands, gave a "Sir!" which caught everyone's attention.

"Yeah?" O'Neill asked, not even looking at her.

"Fairly strong RDF signal. It's gone now. Not long enough to triangulate."

"So... So, what does that mean?" Rothman asked, sounding confused.

"Daniel might have tried to use his radio," Carter explained as Harry closed his eyes, building up theories based on that. The souls he saw had stopped, so...

"Could be SG-11," Major Griff suggested.

"UAV picked up something. I can't explain why it died out," Carter said, shaking her head.

"Maybe the Unas stopped him from using it?" Harry said with a shrug. That theory was the most obvious one, and he was appalled that the others didn't immediately jump to that conclusion.

"Alright, let's pick it up!" O'Neill said.

"We shouldn't be going this way," Harry said simply, pointing to the right. "Daniel and the Unas are over there."

O'Neill looked over his shoulder, giving Harry a look that told him that O'Neill didn't believe him in the slightest.

"And how the hell would you know that, Harry?"

"Magic right eye," Harry said truthfully. For some reason, O'Neill didn't deem that a viable explanation, and as such turned his head to look forward again, without a doubt ignoring Harry, who sighed in exasperation. Nobody ever believed him until he showed them...

"Sierra Golf One-One-Niner, this is Sierra Golf One-Niner, come in," O'Neill spoke into his radio as he walked. "We're somewhere on your six, joining the search, do you read?" Shaking his head, he turned his head to look over his shoulder at Carter. "Where the hell is Hawkins?"

"UAV will run out of fuel by now," Carter said with a shrug.

"Maybe an Unas got him," Rothman suggested as he took a drink of water from his flask, only getting a scathing look from O'Neill and Carter.

They soon reached the dig site, and everyone spread out, checking the tents and such. Harry, however, showed no caution or stealth as he walked straight through the camp, straight toward where he saw a body, but no soul, which clearly meant the man was dead.

"Loeder was killed over there," Rothman said, as he and the others followed Harry over to the body. O'Neill used hand signals to get the others to fan out and secure the area. Major Griff and another soldier approached the edge of the woods where the body of Loeder lay, while Harry walked straight up to the body and knelt next to it, looking it over.

"He appears to have been killed by a being of great strength," Teal'c remarked, and Harry nodded.

"You can say that again, mate," he said as he opened Loeder's shirt and lifted his undershirt to check the body, pressing his fingers down on his ribs. "Six broken ribs, and neck snapped. From the bruising, I'd say the neck was broken with a single hand."

"A... A single hand?" Rothman asked, gulping. O'Neill turned to him.

"What was Loeder doing?"

"Packing up fossilized Goa'uld for transport back to earth."

"You guys weren't doing anything that would have provoked an attack?" O'Neill asked suspiciously.

"I, er... I don't know!"

"You know, Rothman, I'm so glad you came!" O'Neill said sarcastically.

"Okay, then no, I doubt it very much," Rothman said in frustration as Teal'c walked over to join Harry by the body, checking the tracks around it. "You see, we'd been at the dig for three weeks, doing exactly what Loeder's been doing for three weeks."

"Look at this," Major Griff said as he walked up to O'Neill, holding something up. From where he was, Harry couldn't see what it was, but there was the sound of metal clinking against metal, so Harry could only assume they were shell casings. "They got off a hell of a lot of shots."

"Our theory appears to be correct, O'Neill," Teal'c said, walking over to O'Neill from the body. "The stride, width, and shape of these footprints appear to be consistent with that of an Unas."

"Can you track it?"

"Indeed."

One of the soldiers who went into the forest approached O'Neill with a visibly shocked Major Hawkins. Harry perked up immediately, watching him. Two souls in one body? Slowly, a smirk appeared on his face as he rose to his feet.

"Colonel O'Neill! We found him just standing there, staring off into space," the soldier told O'Neill as they approached, and Hawkins blinked.

"Colonel?"

"Where's the rest of your men?" O'Neill asked, approaching Hawkins cautiously.

"We were attacked... Sanchez is dead for sure. I don't know what happened after that. We got split up... I was hoping some of them might have made it back..." Hawkins muttered numbly, staring around and appearing confused.

"Hold on, before you continue this interrogation, I need to take a look at him," Harry said, approaching. He put his hand on Hawkins' cheek and forced his eye open fully, staring into it. Then, in a casual tone, he said, "So, tell me, did you enter through the neck, or the mouth?"

Hawkins' eyes glowed as he immediately realized he had been discovered. He gave a yell in a deep voice that clearly showed that he was now a Goa'uld and raised his hand to attack, but before he could, Harry had already moved, slamming his palm into his chest and pouring his magic into it, causing what looked like yellow electricity to spark from Hawkins' chest.

Hawkins was lifted from the ground and slammed into the ground, twitching.

"Tie him up. We need to take him back alive, if we want to come up with a way to remove it from him," Harry said, taking a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it.

"We can't," O'Neill said, still looking at Hawkins in shock. "We've already tried it."

"Yeah, well, you didn't have me around for that, did you?" Harry asked, smirking. "Now, we should get going, Daniel and the Unas are just getting further away from us."

With that, Harry walked off, without waiting for any orders. He wandered straight into the woods, puffing on his cigarette in peace.

The journey was relatively uneventful, until he got to a rather large lake, which he stopped and stared at, narrowing his eyes as his right one scanned the lake. There were many souls in there, all of them identical to the soul of a Goa'uld.

"Colonel," he spoke into his radio after fishing it out of his pocket.

"_We're right on your six, Harry. Hawkins has been collected by Coburn. What is it?_" O'Neill's voice asked.

"Beware of the lakes. I've detected hundreds of them in the lake I'm at now. That explains how Hawkins got taken over."

"_Copy that. Are you sure Daniel is this way? Teal'c said the tracks led south._"

"I'm sure, Colonel. But by all means, follow the tracks. We'll see who gets there first," Harry said as he continued walking. "I mean, it's not like I've been right about everything else we've ever talked about, right?"

"_No need to be a smartass..._"

"Colonel, there's always a need to be a smartass."

With that, Harry pocketed his radio and kept walking, lighting his fourth cigarette of the day, following the soul he could see in the distance. Without much else to do, he started jogging.

That was one of the problems that Harry had developed. He got bored too easily. He hated walking, especially if there was nothing interesting between his starting point and his destination. But he got _extremely_ bored if there was nothing in between, and he knew that there was something interesting at the end. So, he tended to smoke more when he got bored, something that had gotten him many complaints from Tonks.

It took him five hours, but he finally managed to get to his destination, a cave that Daniel and the Unas had entered. Putting out his cigarette, he headed inside.

From there, he didn't actually need his right eye to figure out where Daniel was, as the archaeologist had left a trail, leaving arrows scribbled on a wall with what looked like coal. He caught up to see Daniel get pulled into a large cavern by the primitive Unas.

"Look, I know we've got the beginnings of a beautiful friendship here, but I'm not sure your folks are going to understand," Daniel said in a tone that clearly told Harry that he'd rather be anywhere else right now. Harry couldn't blame him.

A loud, deep growl was heard, and the shadow of a large Unas could be seen coming toward them from deeper within the cavern. Harry hid behind a rock as he watched what was going to happen as the younger Unas and Daniel stopped when the large Unas appeared and approached them, still growling loudly, which made the younger Unas cower in fear.

The larger approached Daniel, but the younger one stepped in front of him, holding his hands up to stop him while shouting, "Ka! Ka keka!"

Harry couldn't hold back a sigh as he watched the older one growling at the young one. This meant that Daniel had probably befriended the Unas, which, in turn, meant that Harry wouldn't be allowed to kill and dissect it... Damn it...

The big one was obviously the alpha male, and he was growling angrily at the younger one.

"Ka nan, tok! Chaka, ska nat, Chaka!" the younger one yelled, as Harry walked out from behind his cover, clearing his throat.

"Need any help?" he asked curiously in a tone that made it sound like he had just met Daniel on the street, not walked into a situation where there was a fierce debate whether or not Daniel would become the meal of the evening.

"Don't!" Daniel said immediately, putting up his hands. "Don't do anything."

The alpha male saw Harry, his eyes widening, and he reared his head back and roared very loudly. More roars were heard as several more Unas appeared from further inside the cave. They started to move toward them, but the young Unas started talking again, evidently pleading for Daniel's life.

"Cho'ee'che!" the young one yelled.

"This started out as some sort of rite of passage," Daniel explained to the curious Harry. "I think the alpha male was expecting the younger one to offer me up for some kind of feast."

"Tok! Chaka, ka nan!"

"Instead, I think the younger one's trying to bring me into his clan."

"Fascinating," Harry said in a tone that clearly told Daniel that he thought it was anything but. "So, can I kill it?"

"No, we've communicated. We're friends."

"Friends..." Harry repeated incredulously.

One of the other Unas approached, swinging a club, but the younger one stopped it with a yell of "Ka!" and Harry's hand slipped into his pocket to grasp a scalpel, which he had to admit was very dangerous to have in his pocket without anything covering the blade. Especially judging by the fact that he just cut his thumb on it. It was a good thing he had charmed his coat to be tear-resistant.

"Don't!" Daniel yelled, seeing Harry's hand in his pocket. "I think the younger one's trying to tell the clan that he's found something good for them."

"Oh, that's great..." Harry muttered, scoffing. "Yet another life form that I'm not allowed to study..."

The alpha male approached Daniel to attack, but Daniel raised his hands in defense and yelled out, "Ka keka!" forcing him to stop, surprised, and back away slightly.

"Translation?" a bored Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I think I just asked him not to kill me..."

The alpha male apparently didn't find it a good request to grant, as he knocked the younger one out of the way and swiped at Daniel, who ducked to avoid him. Harry slipped his scalpel out of his coat and moved to attack, but by then the younger had already recovered and attacked the alpha. He attacked with a fervor that Harry wouldn't have expected from such a young creature, completely taking the alpha male by surprise and knocking him back.

The alpha roared and attacked as well, the two creatures swiping at each other again and again, just as the rest of SG-1 came into the cavern, all of them raising their weapons to fire. Harry, however, just raised his hand, stopping them, and in doing so cast some wandless magic with perfect timing. His crushing hex hit the alpha male in the chest just as the younger one hit him, which made him roar with pain. Taking advantage of the pain the alpha was in, the younger knocked him into a shallow pool and jumped onto him, pushing his head down.

The older Unas thrashed in a panic, but like with all living land-creatures, its thrashing soon stopped. Regardless, the younger Unas held it down for an extra ten seconds, then let go and slowly straightened up, before giving out a loud roar, which caused the other Unas to bow to him.

"He's just become the alpha male," Daniel spoke in understanding.

The young Unas growled at the others, and they quickly retreated back into the depths of the caves, while he turned to Daniel.

"Dan'el?" he growled out, and gestured for Daniel to accompany him into the caves. Daniel stood there for a while, then slowly shook his head.

"Ka," he said softly, which caused the Unas to perk up in surprise. "I have to go now," Daniel continued as he gesture for SG-1. "Thank you, Chaka."

Apparently understanding, the Unas growled softly, turned, and left. O'Neill and Carter stood up from their defensive positions and walked over to Daniel, while Harry noticed something that made him very happy. As the Unas made to leave the cavern, it stopped and looked at Daniel.

"Chaka!"

"What'd that mean?" O'Neill asked, blinking as he watched the Unas leave.

"I have no idea..." Daniel mumbled. "But I think I've just been invited to come back one day and find out."

A wide grin made its way onto Harry's face as he walked up to the shallow pool, lifting the former alpha male out of it and slinging him onto his shoulder.

"Well, all's well that ends well. Daniel isn't dead, he made a friend, and I got something to study. Everyone wins!"

–

_Journal, October 2nd, 2000,_

_Thoroughly studied the body of the Unas I brought back from P3X-888. Although there wasn't much an Unas could give me that I didn't already have, I discovered that an Unas' bones are very sturdy. Stronger, even, than my own, as my crushing hex had only managed to break a single rib on the Unas. This makes their bones stronger than my own, and that makes them valuable to me. I will be researching to see what gives them such strength, and I will add those properties to my own bones._

_I have also begun looking into the surgical procedure used to remove a symbiote from Major Charles Kawalsky. I have discovered where they went wrong. When a Goa'uld takes over its host, it weaves itself around the nervous system, where thin filaments are extended that go up into the brain itself. What the surgeon did to Kawalsky was simply severing the filaments and removing the symbiote. According to the reports, the symbiote had left a piece of itself in Kawalsky, a piece which fell out of his open skull after part of it got stuck in the Stargate._

_I will consider what method I can use to prevent such a thing from happening._

–

_Journal, October 3rd, 2000,_

_Isolated the chemical in Unas bones which makes them so dense. I have no name for it, as it has never been seen before. Their bones, like human bones, also contain calcium hydroxylapatite (this is the osseous tissue that gives bones their rigidity) and collagen, an elastic protein which improves fracture resistance. The collagen levels in the bones are surprisingly high, and this new chemical is something I haven't seen before. Nonetheless, I have discovered that the chemical isn't harmful to humans, and so I will attempt to bond it to my own skeleton._

_In other news, the symbiote inside Hawkins has started demanding its freedom. We, of course, have refused to make any deals with it, as it would serve no purpose. In the meantime, I have been studying the anesthetic used when attempting to remove Major Kawalsky's symbiote._

_I believe I may have an idea..._

–

On October the sixth, Harry sat in the briefing room with Hammond, Fraiser, O'Neill, Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c. Hammond was holding a test tube in his hand, filled with a liquid that looked eerily like urine.

"I understand you improved the anesthetic?" Hammond asked, to which Harry nodded as Hammond passed the liquid to Fraiser.

"Yes, I had added some hallucinogenic properties to it. I will need to test it first, but I believe that the anesthetic will, if injected into the symbiote, give it a sense of euphoria, while loosening the filaments it has attached to Major Hawkins' brain," Harry said. "This should allow me to safely remove it, while keeping both it and Major Hawkins alive. This should permit me to study it. Hopefully, I will also be able to hook the Goa'uld up to the Memory Encoding/Decoding Projection & Neural Isolation Scanning Device, also known as MEDPNIS, or MedPenis for short. (At this, O'Neill gave a snort of amusement) However, given that this is a primitive Goa'uld, I doubt it will have any use to us."

Hammond looked contemplative. Then, he slowly nodded. "Very well, Doctor. I shall allow it. Dr. Fraiser, assist Dr. Potter in any way you can, to make sure the risks will be lowered to their absolute minimum."

"Yes, sir," Fraiser said as they all stood up.

And so, after a whole day of research upon research, tests upon tests, Harry stood in one of the operating rooms with Dr. Fraiser and a team of nurses. He had changed coats, and now wore a very patched coat. It was the type of coat that closed to the right, at the neck and shoulder, then down to his waist. It was shorter than his other coat, stopping at mid-thigh. It also had very large patches here and there, sewn in with comically large stitches. The same type of stitches were visible at the seams holding the sleeves in place. Most of his face was covered by a surgical mask, and on his hands were a pair of surgical gloves.

"Alright," Harry said to the anesthesiologist, "Inject the anesthetics."

As the anesthesiologist walked up to Hawkins, who was strapped face-down to the operating table, Harry reached into his pants and took out a cigarette. He made to put it in his mouth, but found it stopped by the mask, which made him sigh and pocket it again.

"Start the clock," he said once the anesthetic had been injected into the Goa'uld, and another had been injected into Hawkins. A nurse reached over and started the large timer behind them at zero. "Scalpel."

It was weird, having a team standing by to assist him. Harry was used to doing things like this himself.

"Making the first incision," he announced to the people in the observation room when the timer hit 00:00:02. At 00:46:13, Harry had a clear view of the symbiote, a grin spreading on his face behind the mask as he stared at it. "The parasite shows no sign of struggle," he spoke, reaching in with tweezers and grabbing the tail-end of it. "I will attempt a small tug, to see if the filaments have indeed retracted."

Harry gave the symbiote a tug, and found it being pulled around the spine with ease. His grin widening, he reached up and turned the bolt in his head.

"I'm thinking about going out for tacos after this. Anyone want to come?"

"Focus, Doctor," came Hammond's voice from the observation room.

"I'm always focused," Harry said simply as he kept pulling on the symbiote. With the anesthetics, the Goa'uld had nothing to hold on with, so removing it was a piece of cake. He pulled it out of Hawkins and made a gesture with his hand, watching as a nurse rolled up a tank filled with a liquid, and he lifted the symbiote and sank it into the tank, after which the nurse immediately put a lid on it.

"And we're done here," Harry said, stretching. "Dr. Fraiser, could you close for me?"

Fraiser nodded, and Harry walked off with the tank, taking off his gloves and mask, yawning.

–

_Journal, October 8th, 2000,_

_Started my proper research into the Goa'uld physiology. The symbiote, henceforth going under the designation Prometheus, has proven invaluable to me. Although the absence of Naquadah in the symbiote has left me... disappointed, I have to admit that this mature symbiote carries a lot more of the properties required to synthesize a replacement for Teal'c. With this much, I should be able to do so, if I can just break it down some more. Will keep researching._

–

_Journal, October 20th, 2000,_

_Haven't had reason to make an addition to the journal until now. All the information I have stumbled upon is merely information that I have previously theorized, and only served to confirm this. I have gone back to page 15 and checked off the theories I have confirmed. For more information, consult said page._

_Prometheus shows a clear rebellion against my tests. I do not believe that he (from intense study of its neural patterns and thoughts, I have concluded that it has a distinctively male line of thought) is quite used to such treatment from 'lowly Tau'ri.' Too bad for him, he was the one who decided to take over Major Hawkins, a poor decision, which I have, on several occasions, taken immense pleasure in reminding him of._

–

_Journal, October 22nd, 2000,_

_Success! Ha! I have already established this on several occasions, but I am a genius, through and through. I have broken down the properties in the symbiote, and managed to synthesize a viable replacement. Naturally, this is untested, as subject Teal'c is currently away on a mission that did not require my attention. Besides, the mission was here on earth, so I had no interest whatsoever in accompanying my team on it when I could do something much more interesting, like revolutionizing the way of life for all Jaffa._

_Ending the journal entry here, and I will return with more information once I have administered it to Teal'c._

–

"Are you certain that your replacement will work, Harry Potter?" Teal'c asked as he lay in the infirmary. His symbiote was in a tank not far from him, having been removed only minutes earlier.

"Ninety-seven point eight three percent certain," Harry said as he tapped the bubbles out of the syringe in his hand. A rubber chord had been tied around Teal'c arm, exposing his vein. "However, if my calculations are correct, and they always are, this should serve as a viable replacement, allowing you to keep your strength, longevity, et cetera."

"Is it permanent?"

"No, you will be dependent on it. You will need to retake it once a week, unless I can make a more long-lasting compound," Harry said, positioning the needle above Teal'c's vein, before inserting it and pressing the plunger. "Now, I understand it would take about an hour before you feel the effects of your symbiote being removed?"

"Indeed."

"Well then, we have an hour to wait before we can see if this works. We will keep Junior in stasis for as long as you are using this compound. That way, we can implant him again, should this not work."

"Indeed," Teal'c said again as Harry loosened the rubber chord and smiled, having already removed the syringe.

"I will provide you with four auto-injectors whenever you go on missions, in case they take longer than expected."

"I am in your debt, Harry Potter," Teal'c said, bowing his head to Harry as he sat up. "If this works, it will usher in a new age for the Jaffa, free from our dependance on the Goa'uld."

A smirk made its way onto Harry's face as he lit his cigarette.

"Indeed."

–

**Well, there you have it, chapter two! Not as exciting as I would have wanted, but this was mostly just a stepping stone for chapter three. Please leave a review at the door!**


	3. Chapter 3

**ZnK here with chapter three! I hope you all enjoy this chapter! Please leave a review at the door!**

–

Harry was happily whistling the tune to Rule, Britannia as he sat in a Humvee with Generals Hammond and Vidrine. Hammond and Vidrine sat in the back of it, while Harry sat in the passenger seat. They were going to a demonstration of the new X-301 Interceptor. Harry was allowed to come, since he had been responsible for much of the conversion from Goa'uld to Tau'ri tech.

"Doctor," General Vidrine said, which stopped Harry from whistling. He hummed and looked over his shoulder at the General. "You have been whistling that tune since we left the base. Do you think you could stop?"

Harry felt a bit rebellious. The fact that Vidrine wanted him to stop made him want to whistle even more. However, when faced with the prospect of not being allowed to see the X-301, he slowly nodded and did as Vidrine told him.

They reached runway 18, where O'Neill, Carter, Daniel, and who Harry recognized as Major Davis were waiting for them. As the Humvee stopped, Carter stood at attention when Davis walked over and opened the door for Hammond and Vidrine, who stepped out of it along with Harry. The Humvee drove off, and O'Neill stood at attention and saluted, which was returned by Vidrine.

"Is there a problem, Colonel?" Hammond asked, noticing, like Harry, that the X-301 was nowhere in sight.

"No, sir. Not at all. I'm sure Teal'c just felt he'd take her for a spin..." O'Neill said, glancing up at the sky uncertainly. "...around the world..."

"Well, while we're waiting, I have someone who'd like to meet your team," Hammond said, gesturing for Vidrine.

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, allow me to introduce to you Lieutenant General Vidrine," Davis said with a smile.

"Colonel."

"General."

"Major."

"General."

"Doctor."

"General."

"General Hammond has told me nothing but good things."

"Has he, sir? Well, then I'm sure he's left something out," O'Neill joked with a small smile on his face. Unfortunately, the joke flew right over Vidrine's head.

"Such as?"

O'Neill blinked in surprise, then awkwardly cleared his throat and refrained from answering, instead raising a radio to his mouth.

"Teal'c, ya there, buddy?"

"Look immediately to the southwest, O'Neill," came Teal'c's voice, and they all turned just in time to see a humanized Death Glider swoop over them at high speed, trailing a sonic boom that forced everyone wearing a hat to press down their hand on them to keep them from flying off, ducking slightly. As they all straightened up, O'Neill gave a loud whoop, while Harry grumbled about his cigarette having been blown from his mouth. He'd just lit it, too...

"What in God's name is that?" Vidrine asked in shock.

"That, General, is the X-301 Interceptor," Davis said with a proud smile on his face.

"Looking good, Teal'c," O'Neill said into the radio. "Give us another fly-by, low and slow."

"As you wish."

"It's a hybrid craft, sir, made with a combination of good ol' American know-how, and two Goa'uld Death Gliders that SG-1 recovered a couple of years ago."

"Ahem," Harry uttered, giving Davis a stern look. "_American_ know-how?"

Davis flinched slightly at the look in Harry's eyes and cleared his throat, then said, "And some British know-how, of course, provided by Dr. Potter..."

"It may be the most impressive aircraft I've ever seen," Vidrine said, sounding impressed.

"Oh, it's more than that, sir," Carter said. "Up until now, we haven't had a platform from which we could launch an attack against a Goa'uld ship... Now we do."

The X-301 made another fly-by, this time much slower than before. Vidrine gave it a curious look and asked, "What makes it fly?"

Carter opened her mouth to explain, but Harry beat her to it.

"General, we could give a long, intricate explanation of how this craft completely takes inertia out of the equation using the power crystals inside and so on, an explanation that would no doubt be wasted. So let's just say it flies, and leave it at that, okay?"

Vidrine seemed to understand what Harry meant, that he would never be able to grasp the explanation no matter how much it was dumbed down due to the complexity. Therefore, he just nodded.

"I can accept that, Doctor."

They watched as the X-301 landed, and Teal'c got out, taking off his helmet and tucking it under his arm, approaching the group.

"I always like to get a view of the man in the cockpit," Vidrine said, a smile on his face. "How does she fly, son?"

"The vehicle performed within the expected parameters," Teal'c said in his usual monotone.

"Woo-hoo!" O'Neill said softly. Silence followed this as everyone turned to look at him. O'Neill blinked at looked at Vidrine, who was giving him a strange look. "Oh, sorry, sir. I couldn't help but get caught up in Teal'c's enthusiasm."

Everyone gave small smiles at that. Well, expect for Teal'c, but that was to be expected.

"Upon completion of a fight-test program, we hope to deploy the X-301 as an orbital defense craft under your command, sir."

"In all seriousness..." Vidrine said, then stopped and turned to look at O'Neill. "...if that's alright with you, Colonel? How effective can a single fighter be against a potential fleet of Goa'uld warships?"

"That is what these tests endeavor to determine," Teal'c said simply.

"Let's find out. What's next?"

"I take second seat for an air-to-air live fire test," O'Neill explained. Hammond was about to speak, but Harry gave a laugh.

"Doctor?" Hammond asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Yeah, no one's taking that girl for another spin until I've had a look at it," Harry said simply. "These are the Goa'uld we're talking about. Don't you think they must have put in at least one failsafe for if their technology was ever stolen?"

Hammond's brow furrowed, and he looked to O'Neill, who blinked and looked to Teal'c, who merely raised an eyebrow and looked to Carter, who opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. She thought about it for a moment.

"Well, it is possible, sir," Carter conceded. "We didn't encounter anything when we designed it, but this level of technology is a bit over our heads, so there may be something in it that acts as a failsafe."

"Over _your_ heads," Harry said, lighting a cigarette and walking over to the X-301. "Open this baby up! I want to have a look-see!"

So, the X-301 had been moved into one of the hangars. Several computers were connected to it, and much of the plating had been removed, revealing the interior, which contained a myriad of both Goa'uld and Tau'ri tech. Not many would have been able to make heads or tails of it, but not Harry, who was currently looking around inside it, laying on the nose of the ship, his upper body from his waist up being inside it.

"Found something!" he called to Carter as he touched a control crystal that definitely hadn't been in the schematics that he had been sent. "This little thing was hidden well. From what I can tell, it's designed to activate at a certain altitude."

He came out from within the X-301 and showed the crystal to Carter, who was on the ground giving him a strange look.

"Harry, it's a crystal. How can you know how it's set to activate without any tests?"

"No idea. I can just understand it," Harry jumped down and walked up to Carter, showing the crystal. "See these cracks inside the crystal? They're what controls the crystal functions. Don't ask me how I know. I just do."

"Well, let's hook it up and see if we can't figure out for sure what it does," Carter said, to which Harry nodded. Using a device that Harry had helped construct, they placed the crystal inside it and hooked it up to the computer, then started running diagnostics.

"Look, there. Auto-pilot commands, target coordinates..." Harry muttered, looking over the data the computer received. "And look, this is a recording."

He started tapping away at the keyboard, decoding the message in the crystal, and converting it to a sound file compatible with a computer. Then, he played it.

"_Shol'va!_" came Apophis' voice. "_To all those who would turn against their god, know this! For your insolence, you will die in the cold of space. What is rightfully mine will now return to me!_"

Harry and Carter stood there in silence for a good ten seconds after the recording stopped. Then, Harry clicked his tongue.

"Bit dramatic, isn't he?"

"Imagine if Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c had gone up into the air with this," Carter said, her eyes wide.

"They would have been shot into space, and starved, choked, or frozen to death," Harry said simply with no ounce of sympathy in his voice as he nodded. "Well, I'm famished. This was the only out-of-place thing I could find, so it should be okay to fly now."

With that, Harry left the hangar.

–

_Journal, November 5th, 2000,_

_Have resumed working on the bone-enhancing serum using the foreign chemicals discovered in the Unas' bones. It is proving to be challenging work, synthesizing something that has never been seen by a human before. It is... refreshing. Teal'c's condition remains the same. He is showing no signs of a failing immune system after the removal of his symbiote. The replacement compound, hereby known as the Prometheus Serum, serves to fulfill the functions that the symbiote once fulfilled. Regardless, designation Junior remains in stasis, pending long-term effects of the serum._

–

A knock was heard on the door to Harry's lab, making him look up from his work to see Daniel standing in the doorway.

"Evening," Daniel said hesitantly. Harry stared at him for a moment, then nodded.

"Evening. Need something?"

"Yes, actually," Daniel said, stepping into the lab. "It wasn't in your file, so I didn't find this out until just now, but you have an incredible grasp on languages and history, don't you?"

"I do," Harry said. "When I came here, I spoke only a bit of Goa'uld, but now I can speak it fluently. I'm also learning Ancient right now. I'm fluent in Latin, but the Ancient language is a bit different. I hear you're the linguistic expert in this place."

"Uh, yes, I am," Daniel said, showing off a wad of papers in his hand. "I was hoping to get some help, translating this text. I've had some time to study it, but I'm not really fluent in Ancient, either, so I thought that two heads may be better than one."

Harry narrowed his eyes a fraction as he contemplated it. He didn't actually have much else to do, other than observing Teal'c's condition now that he was on the Prometheus Serum.

"Well, I'd have to take time out of my kinda busy schedule to do it. Let me consult it first," Harry said as he turned back to his desk and looked down at his planner. "Today, I'm doing... nothing. Then there's lunch, followed by nothing, and, ah! After that, I'm doing less than nothing!"

The corner of Daniel's mouth twitched in amusement as Harry grinned at him. He held out his hand, and Daniel handed him the wad of papers.

"You work on that, and come see me once you've finished translating it, or if you get stuck on something."

"Will do," Harry said with a nod. Daniel nodded as well, then left the lab. Now that he was alone, Harry looked down at the papers, looking over the texts. He had always gotten this strange feeling whenever he looked at Ancient writing. It was as though he should have known what the text said, even if he at first had no clue. What surprised him was that he had deduced the Ancient alphabet before he was taught it.

The rest of the day was spent in boredom, translating the useless text Daniel brought him. There were no interesting missions to go on, and so he spent the time cooped up in his lab, either working on a more long-lasting Prometheus Serum, taunting Prometheus, or working on the bone-enhancing serum from the Unas.

Now, he was in Daniel's 'office,' looking over more Ancient texts in boredom, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He had been refused entry unless he agreed not to smoke in there.

"So, I've noticed that Teal'c isn't around. What gives?" he asked Daniel, who was looking over yet another page of Ancient text.

"He's gone to Chulak, to recruit Jaffa and spread the word of the Prometheus Serum," Daniel said, to which Harry nodded, his head tilting to the side as he looked over a segment of text.

"Hey, look at this," he said and walked over to Daniel, showing the text to him. "This speaks of a repository. I've heard you mention that word before. I think you encountered one on one of your missions. What is it?"

"Well, it's basically a repository of the Ancients' knowledge," Daniel explained. "It basically downloads the entire library of Ancient knowledge into a person's mind. That massive amount of data then slowly unspools into your brain, eventually taking over your consciousness completely."

"_All_ their knowledge?"

"All of it, from how they tied their shoelaces to how to build a Death Star."

Harry blinked, then furrowed his brow in confusion. "Death Star?" he repeated curiously.

"You've never watched Star Wars?" Daniel asked, clearly surprised.

"Never been a fan of sci-fi," Harry said with a shrug. "Too over the top."

"Well, the Death Star was a space station the size of a planet, equipped with a weapon that could blow up planets," Daniel explained, and Harry gave off a soft "Ah..." in understanding. "So, you can imagine how much information would be in between that."

"Hm, I bet I could handle it," Harry said with a smirk.

"I find that doubtful."

"Hey, don't underestimate my brain. My head may look like it's the normal size, but it's bigger on the inside."

Daniel blinked and turned to Harry again, staring at him suspiciously.

"Doctor Who? I thought you weren't a fan of sci-fi?"

"Well, not all sci-fi, anyway. We all have soft spots for this and that, don't we?" Harry asked, grinning. Then, he hummed. "Besides, I get this strange feeling of... familiarity toward the Doctor..."

With that said, Harry shook his head to clear it, and then looked back at the texts, humming again. It was another five minutes before he stumbled upon the word again.

"Here's another reference to a repository," Harry said. "Did you thoroughly search P3X-552?"

"Keep reading," Daniel said, making a gesture with his hand. Harry furrowed his brow in confusion, but did as he was told.

"'...and was dismantled due to its poor location...'" he read, giving off another "Ah..."

"So, I hear the Tok'ra have been requesting your presence," Daniel said suddenly, making Harry blink.

"Me?"

"Yeah. They need your help with something, apparently."

"Aren't the Tok'ra kinda prideful? It's not like them to ask for a human's help."

"So, they must think you're more intelligent than a normal human."

"Spot on."

"Have you ever heard of the word humility?"

"Humility is overrated," Harry said with a scoff.

–

Harry stepped through the Stargate onto the Tok'ra base world of Vorash. As far as the eye could see, there was desert. Waiting for him was none other than Anise, who smiled upon seeing him.

"Welcome, Dr. Potter," she said, bowing her head in greeting. "We have been trying to acquire your help for some time, but your government has been reluctant to let you go."

"Yeah, so I've heard," Harry said, walking up to Anise, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. "So, what did you need my help with?"

"Please," Anise said, gesturing for Harry to follow her. Or rather, it was Freya, as her voice wasn't the deep voice signaling the symbiote being in control. Either way, Harry followed her to a spot some distance from the Stargate, at which point she stopped.

"Rings?" Harry asked, stopping next to her, and she nodded, just as a set of rings shot up from the sand, engulfing them in a bright light. When the light died down, Harry found himself standing in a crystalline cavern, which he had learned were made from Tok'ra tunnel crystals.

"Welcome to Vorash," Freya said with a smile, once more gesturing for Harry to follow her.

"Thank you. But you still haven't told me why you need my help," he said, not lighting his cigarette, despite feeling a great need to do so. "Or did you just call me here because you want to get into my pants?"

Freya stopped and blinked, turning to Harry in confusion.

"Why would I wish to wear your pants?" she asked curiously. Harry snorted at that.

"Right, not human, and as such don't know about earth slang," he muttered, shaking his head. "Anyway, why don't you tell me why you called me here?"

Freya nodded and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they flashed once, signaling that Anise had taken over.

"Freya and I both realize that you have great technological prowess," Anise said as they started walking again. "We have need for your skills."

"That's pretty vague."

"Be patient, and I will show you."

They walked through a tunnel and reached a larger cavern, which had a table in the center of it. On the table was a small tablet, which Anise picked up and handed to Harry.

"I understand you speak the Goa'uld language fluently?"

"I do," Harry said, taking the tablet and the page-turning device he was handed, waving it over the tablet to make text appear.

"As you can see, we found a planet with a piece of technology we believe to have been built by those you call Ancients. We have been unable to understand what the device does. Although most Tok'ra believe ourselves to be above the Tau'ri in terms of intelligence, you have shown yourself to have a formidable mind. Both Freya and I agree that it would be better to have three minds working on this."

"Well, it was understandable that you would come to me for this," Harry said, still reading the report. "From what I can tell, judging by the inscriptions on the device, the shape, and placement of the control crystals, I'd say it was some kind of control device. Was this the only word that hadn't been faded?" he asked, gesturing for the Ancient writing on the tablet, to which Anise nodded. "Well, this word is Continoere, which the Latin derived to Continere, which means Control. Where is this device?"

"I can take you there," Anise said, and Harry gave a nod. "It is not often that I leave Vorash."

"So, this is a special occasion?" Harry asked as they left the room.

"It is."

Harry refrained from making anymore insinuations regarding her wish for him to be there, as he was sure they would fly right over her head, and would make it a wasted effort.

An hour later, Anise and Harry were in a Tel'tak, a small Goa'uld transport ship, having left Vorash and heading toward the new planet, the name for which Anise had yet to give him.

"I understand that you are fairly new to this?" Anise spoke up, sounding a bit hesitant to speak. Obviously, she wasn't very used to small talk.

"You could say that. This is the first time I've been in a ship," Harry said, looking around. "It's more comfortable than I would have thought. Although I suppose the travel time outweighs the comfort."

"You do not like sitting still?"

"Oh, I like sitting still just fine. It's just sitting still doing nothing that I hate. I even get bored taking a smaller walk if I don't have anything interesting to do."

Anise nodded slowly. Then, she gave Harry a strange look.

"I have been wanting to ask, but I do not want to come off as rude, but what is that in your head? It is not normal for a Tau'ri."

"I call it a Thought-Bolt," Harry said, shrugging. "Don't ask me why I named it that. I was fourteen and didn't have many ideas. Anyway, I designed this so that it works kind of like a wind-up clock."

Anise blinked. "I do not understand."

"Well, the device that I assembled in my brain is designed to keep it young, fresh, focused, and render it immune to deterioration," Harry explained. "It continues to do so for as long as I turn this bolt twice a week. Of course, it has become a habit to turn it more than that."

"Interesting. And those... stitches? Why are they still in place? I have deduced that you use them to keep a wound shut until it heals."

"Intimidation purposes," Harry explained.

"Intimidation?"

"Yes. People are more inclined to take you seriously, and do as you say, if they are intimidated by your personality, appearance, or simply mere presence."

Anise nodded slowly, and they lapsed into silence for a while. Then, she spoke again.

"I am pleased to see at least one member of the SGC that bears no ill-will toward me," she said, which made Harry chuckle.

"Oh, yes, I heard about the experiment with the Atanik armbands," he said, then gave her a reassuring smile. "Believe me, I am the same as you in that regard."

"And how am I?"

"Although we both care about our allies, and don't like to deliberately hurt them, we can both be overcome by the excitement of testing new things, that we tend to forget about their well-being."

"I don't-"

"Don't lie to me. I can tell when you do. Both you and Freya are the same in that regard, I think. I would have done the same thing if I was in your shoes."

Slowly, Anise nodded again. Harry, noticing that they once more lapsed into silence, reached into his coat and took out a pen and his journal, opening it and starting to scribble in it.

"Do you enjoy the tactile sensation of handwriting as well?" Anise asked, making Harry blink and look up at her with a "Huh?" Anise smiled. "My host Freya does. Therefore, I tend to make my notes in a journal."

"Well, writing is very calming, I have to admit," Harry said, continuing to jut down notes. "I used to dictate at first, which caused me to say out loud whatever I tended to write when I did it by hand. I kicked that habit, though. Or rather, it was kicked out of me."

"I see. May I ask what you are writing?"

"This and that. Mostly where I'm going, and any observations I have made so far," Harry said with a shrug. "Some random thoughts and theories, too."

"A mind as inventive as yours would never settle for simply making a single thing. Have you created anything else?"

"Well, I did recently create a serum that can rid the Jaffa of their dependance on symbiotes," Harry said, which made Anise's eyes widen drastically.

"That could strike a critical blow against the Goa'uld," she said in amazement.

"I think so. I mean, I'm not really all that interested in the war, you know?"

Anise blinked. "I don't understand."

"I am very self-absorbed. The troubles of others, I don't really bother with them unless there's something I can do about it. For example, the Jaffa... I'm not all that concerned with them. However, I was presented with the challenge of making a serum, and I tackled that challenge. After that, I lost all interest. I'm constantly looking for new challenges, and new things to study."

Harry watched as Anise nodded slowly again in understanding. She looked contemplative for a while, then said, "While I cannot say I share your point of view, I can most certainly understand. Some people are on a constant search for challenges that put their intellect to the test."

Harry nodded, happy that at least someone understood him. It felt nice to have someone who did, other than his family. Even then, there were still times where Tonks was surprised by his lackadaisical attitude regarding certain things.

It took another three hours, but they finally made it to the planet, which looked eerily similar to earth. As they came in for a landing, however, Harry realized that earth didn't have ruins like these.

They landed in the middle of what must have been a square once. Looking out through the Tel'tak, he saw the ruins of a massive city of stone. All of the buildings had long since crumbled, and were overgrown by vines and moss. Anise and Harry got out of their chairs and left the Tel'tak. They maneuvered through the ruined city. Judging by the hesitation Anise showed here and there, she hadn't actually been there before, but instead gotten a description of it.

"I take it this place doesn't have a Stargate?"

"For some reason, it does not. If it does, it is most likely buried," Anise said as they reached a large building with a domed roof. This was the only building that, while overgrown with plant-life, hadn't started crumbling, although the stone walls were cracked in multiple places. "The device is in here."

As they came inside, they found the building to consist of a single room, in the center of which was the device Anise was talking about. It was, like everything else, overgrown with plant-life, and showed clear signs of wear and tear. The base of the device was wide and circular. It held the appearance of a bowl. On the outside was a foot-high, foot-wide attachment that went full-circle around it, probably containing all the 'circuitry.' In the bowl itself was what looked like about fifteen antennas clumped together, attached to each other via thin rods that went to and fro between the antennas.

"The Tok'ra that found it came to us as soon as they had performed a preliminary examination of the device," Anise said as they both walked up to the device. "They didn't have time to remove the plants that have grown over it."

"Yeah, well, that may be for the best. We don't want to accidentally activate anything, do we?" Harry said, kneeling by the device and looking at the inscription on the outside of the bowl. "Here's a piece that hasn't been completely faded... 'Temp,' so... It could, _could_ mind you, have something to do with time."

"This is a device designed to control time?" Anise asked in surprise.

"Well, we've found technology with that intent in mind before, but you can never be sure. I will need to look inside."

"Do you understand Ancient technology?"

"Won't know until I've had a look, will I?" Harry said with a grin, finding a panel on the side that seemed able to come off. Using a bit more force than a normal man to get it off, he realized that it wasn't meant to be taken off. Ah well. "Oh, this is beautiful," he said as he stared at the crystals inside the device. "So, what's Jacob Carter and the rest doing?"

"I'm sorry?" Anise said as Harry started looking over the crystals.

"Well, the SGC received a transmission from the Tok'ra before I left, but I wasn't informed what it was about. I can only assume that, since it was sent to us, the SGC, most likely SG-1, would be involved."

"We have intercepted a conversation between Apophis and Heru'ur. They have agreed to meet in the Tobin System regarding an alliance against the other System Lords. We wanted Jacob Carter and Selmak to go there and incite animosity between them by having one of them think that the other attacked."

"And how would they do that?"

"The Tobin Civilization has been extinct for a long time. However, their technology lives on. Orbiting the planet is a veritable sea of mines. These mines hone in on and attack energy signals, including that of Goa'uld weaponry," Anise explained.

"Ah, so your plan is to have Carter reprogram one of the mines and have it attack one of the ships, giving the appearance that the other ship had attacked." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"That's a smart plan. Pity it won't work," Harry said, pulling out a crystal and examining it, his eyes narrowing in concentration.

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Well, I don't think Apophis is the kind of guy who would put himself in a situation where he could be killed so easily. He may be a fool for masquerading as a god, but no one has ever accused Apophis of being stupid. He's bound to have a backup plan."

"There is that possibility, but this is too great an opportunity to pass up."

"I know."

"Can you deduce the function of the machine?"

"Strangely enough, yes," Harry said, holding up another crystal and staring at it. "I can't explain it, but I know these crystals. Well, I don't really know them, but for some reason I can figure out what the pathways inside them are dedicated to. Most of the ones I've found are dedicated to some form of manipulation... You said you understood the writing on these walls?" he asked as he gestured for the walls around them, upon which was a large amount of text in a language Harry didn't recognize.

"Yes, it is a variation of a Tyngian dialect," Anise said, nodding. "It contains a large portion of the civilization's history, tales of many wars, and many natural disasters."

"Anything about droughts, or hurricanes, or something like that? I suspect that I may have this figured out."

Anise gave Harry a curious look, then walked off and looked over the writing.

"I shall look."

"Thank you," Harry said, removing another panel and examining the crystals in there. He spent the next twenty minutes looking at crystal after crystal, while Anise scanned the writing on the walls in silence.

"I have found something, Dr. Potter."

"Ah, Harry."

"Very well, Harry. I have found something," Anise said, gesturing for the writing she had been looking over. "This part speaks of a great drought that hit this planet, which they called Allegia, lasting for almost a year. Then, a people they refer to as the Builders came from the sky and aided them. They built this device that would, as they write, aid them whenever they had need for it."

"Tempestet," Harry said, snapping his fingers.

"What?" Anise asked, turning to Harry.

"Tempestet. Almost like the Latin Tempestatem, which means Weather, among other things," Harry said, shaking his head. "This wasn't a machine that would control time. It was going to manipulate the weather. From what I understand, it would gather water particles and create rain clouds."

"You do not believe this was a weapon?"

"From what I've learned of the Ancients, they didn't carelessly throw weapons around," Harry said, shaking his head. "No, this was a weather machine, a rainmaker, one could say," he muttered, lighting a cigarette. "Without a doubt, it worked, considering the fact that the civilization remained long enough to put that writing on the walls."

"Is it operational?" Anise asked as she walked up to him, but Harry shook his head.

"Doubtful. The crystals are just fine, but the machine itself isn't made of the hardiest of materials. It's not going to be gathering any water particles again."

Anise nodded, looking a bit disappointed. Without a doubt, she had been hoping for some kind of weapon to use against the Goa'uld. Harry perked up and narrowed his eyes in concentration.

"Tell me, did you happen to bring a weapon with you?"

Anise blinked at the random question and shook her head.

"No, I did not. Why?"

"Oh, we have company," Harry said as they both turned toward the doorway to see a creature standing there. It was very large, about the size of a full-grown bull, but it was nothing like a bull, more like a scaly, thorny wolf, which was snarling angrily at them. Anise stiffened at the sight, and a grin slowly made its way onto Harry's face.

"It looks hostile. That's good."

"How is that good?"

"Because that means I can kill it and dissect it without getting any shite for it," Harry said. Just then, the wolf-thing gave a snarl and charged at them. Harry pushed Anise away and dodged in the other direction as the creature slammed into the device, breaking the worse-for-wear antennas with the force.

The creature snarled again and turned to Anise, who was on the ground, but Harry gave a sharp whistle, catching its attention, his fingers tensing.

Just as the creature made to charge at him, Harry swiped his hand through the air. A flash of silver was seen rushing at the creature, and the next second, the creature's throat was sliced open, spewing its almost black blood onto the ground. The creature flinched from the pain and started thrashing as Harry calmly walked up to it, raising his hand, which was crackling with yellow electricity.

The creature tried to back away, but Harry was faster, closing the distance between them and slamming his hand down on the back of its neck. It slammed into the ground with enough force to crack it, a large amount of dust flying up through the cracked. It didn't move.

"Well, that was easy," Harry said with a smile as he walked up to Anise, holding out a hand. She took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet. "Don't suppose you know what that thing is called?"

"I cannot say I do," Anise said, shaking her head. "I have never seen a creature such as that before."

"Oh, goodie! An unknown," Harry said, rubbing his hands together in excitement. He walked up to the creature, watching as the blood kept pouring from it. "I should wait until it drains. Don't want it to stain the ship, or me for that matter."

Anise stood there in silence for a while, then cleared her throat and said, "Thank you."

"Hm?"

"For pushing me out of the way," Anise clarified, only to get waved off by Harry.

"Oh, you were probably about to dodge yourself. I was just a bit faster."

"I was petrified," Anise said. "I have never been out in the field like this. I belong in a lab. This was the first time I have ever been faced with danger."

"Oh... Well, you're welcome, then," Harry said, shrugging. "It was nothing, really."

"It was. You do not seem like the type of person who would go out of the way to save a life," Anise guessed, which was spot on.

"Good brains are hard to find in this day and age. Didn't want your brain to stop functioning so soon, I suppose," Harry said as he knelt by the creature. Then, he grinned over his shoulder at her. "Besides, you're pretty cute."

Whether Anise reacted to this or not wasn't known to Harry, as he turned back to the creature and, subtly moving his hand over its throat, closing the cut to stop it from spewing blood. Then, he picked it up and slung it over his shoulder.

"Well, the weather machine is definitely shot now, so maybe we should just head back to the ship, eh?"

–

Harry sat in the Tel'tak, turning his bolt in boredom as he stared out the window. Then, he glanced at Anise, whose hands were on the control orb.

"Don't you get tired, holding your arms out like that for hours?" he asked curiously.

"It does get tiring sometimes, but it helps to move your arms around," she said, and her tone of voice told him that it was Freya who was in control of the body now.

"Doesn't this ship have auto-pilot?"

"Auto-pilot?" Freya asked, blinking in confusion.

"Yeah, you know, a program that gets the ship to fly itself to the destination? Your technology is clearly capable of that, since Apophis' Death Gliders are equipped with some kind of recall devices."

"Unfortunately, no such thing has been installed in a Tel'tak before."

Harry grunted, then stood up. He looked to Freya and asked, "The control crystals are in the engine room, yeah?"

"Yes?"

Grumbling to himself about piece of junk ships, and lazy designers, Harry went into the engine room and looked around. He pushed a button on the wall, and a panel slid out. He couldn't explain how he knew, but his mind immediately connected the functions of each control crystal in the panel. He had studied all designs in the SGC database that he could get his hands on, but the things he deduced regarding the crystals were things not even listed in the database.

Not bothering with figuring out why at the moment, he merely got to work rearranging the crystals in an order that felt right to him, then slid the control panel back in. Nodding to himself, he made his way back to the flight deck, still grumbling to himself.

"May I ask what you're doing?" Freya asked curiously as Harry removed a panel near the floor, under the control orb.

"I don't like telling people what I'm doing until I'm sure it works, or until I want to test it," Harry said as he started moving crystals. Satisfied with what he'd done, Harry reattached the panel and sat back down in his chair. He brought up the holoscreen on the control panel and started pressing away.

"How do you have knowledge about how to reprogram a Tel'tak?" Freya asked in shock.

"I've studied Goa'uld ships extensively. My brain is just really good at things like this," Harry said with a shrug, finishing his reprogramming. Then, he brought up the new program and started sifting through coordinates. He stopped at one and pointed at it. "This is Vorash, right?"

"It is."

Nodding, Harry pressed the coordinates, which caused the holoscreen to close. He smiled at Freya and said, "There we go. Auto-pilot. You can let go now."

Freya blinked, but did as she was told.

"That was impressive," she said, but Harry just shrugged.

"I'm going to go do some preliminary examination of the Lupus."

"Lupus?" Freya asked.

"Well, I found it, I'm studying it, I get to name it," Harry said simply, then walked off to the cargo hold. The Lupus was lying in the center of the circle on the floor that showed where the ring transporter would come up. He wasn't going to cut it open or anything on the Tel'tak, but that didn't stop him from poking and prodding its body, opening its maw to look at its mouth and teeth, prying open its eyelid to examine its eye and such.

He had to stop about five minutes into the examination, however, as his itch to cut the creature open almost became too much, and so he got up and walked back toward the flight deck. In the doorway, however, he bumped into Freya, who had probably been coming to see what he was doing.

"Oh, you are finished?" she asked, and Harry nodded.

"Yeah, a preliminary examination just makes me want to dig deeper, but I can't do that here," Harry said. Then, without warning, Freya reached up and pulled him down for a kiss, which made his eyes widen. When she broke the kiss and pulled back, Harry blinked and cleared his throat. "Okay... What was that about?"

"I originally came from a planet where the people were not afraid to show their affection for someone," Freya said seriously. "When we wanted to Lo'machen-"

"Lo-what?"

"I believe you call it... intercourse?"

"Ah," Harry said softly. "Well, there are many words for it. I think the term that flows best for us is to have sex."

"Well, when we wanted to... have sex, we were not afraid to show it," Freya said, still looking just as serious. "My symbiote, Anise, and I are usually conflicted when it comes to this, but for once, we are in agreement when it comes to you."

"This is... Hm, this is strange..." Harry muttered, feeling a bit confused.

"You do not find me attractive?"

"Oh, you are a very beautiful woman," Harry said, but before he could say anything else, Freya kissed him again. This time, Harry was the one who broke the kiss. "Okay, we can't do this."

Freya looked a bit disappointed.

"Is there someone else to whom you are loyal?" she asked.

"Yeah, I have a girlfriend. And she has made it quite clear that she doesn't want me Lo'machening with anyone unless she can join in," Harry said, which caused Freya's head to tilt to the side.

"Are you in a polygamous relationship?"

"Well, I have actually never been put in a situation like this before, even when she was with me, so I'd say it's monogamous so far."

"I understand," Freya said slowly, nodding. "Your mate is a lucky woman. I can't help but feel a little jealous. I would not have minded sharing you with her."

Harry blinked and opened his mouth to speak, but Freya seemed to have decided that the conversation would end there, and so left for the flight deck again. He remained standing there for a minute or two, but then shook his head and went to the flight deck as well, sitting down in his chair.

Freya seemed intent on not speaking about what happened in the cargo hold, and therefore asked, "What did you do to the Lupus?"

"Oh, just a preliminary examination, like I said."

"No, I mean... Its throat was cut, yet you held no weapon capable of doing such a thing."

"Saw that, did you?" Harry asked, chuckling. He'd been hoping that she had missed that. "It was just some simple manipulation of my inner energies. Basically, I just created a scalpel out of energy."

"How did you manage that?"

"Trade secret. If I told you, I'd have to shoot you," Harry said, giving her a small grin. "So let this be our little secret, yeah?"

Freya nodded.

"As you wish."

–

**End of chapter three! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know!**


	4. Chapter 4

**ZnK here with chapter four! I hope you all enjoy this chapter! Please leave a review at the door!**

–

_Journal, December 26th, 2000,_

_What a disappointment... When I returned to the SGC, I was given a long lecture on the danger of bringing foreign creatures back to earth by General Hammond. And I had to sit through it for nothing. Sure, the Lupus provided me with information on its species, it informed me that it was a carnivore, and that it was decidedly not nocturnal. Most likely, it tends to hunt in packs as well, which would make this a lone wolf._

_Other than that, I found nothing that could enhance my own already considerate physical or mental capabilities. Unless, of course, I want to grow thorny scales, but I certainly have no wish to do so, or I would have done it already. Though I admit that its eyes were fascinating. It sees in infrared. I wonder if I could somehow add such a trait to my right eye..._

–

"I'm home!" Harry called as he stepped into his apartment. Today was a Friday, so Tonks wasn't working. She had Fridays and Sundays off, after all. And so, as predicted, a pink-haired missile came flying from the living room, impacting with his chest, arms wrapping around him tightly. Even with his incredible durability, the fact that Tonks had also been injected with Acro Elixir made that kind of useless at the moment, and he had to wheeze out a "Nym!" to get her to let go of him.

"You've been gone for a week!" Tonks scolded as she smacked him on the chest. "You said you'd be back soon!"

"I wasn't given leave until now," Harry defended with a lackadaisical shrug. "But I'm here now, aren't I?"

Tonks harrumphed, crossing her arms and muttering a, "I suppose..." Then, she took Harry's hand and led him into the living room, pushing him down on the couch and sitting down next to him, snuggling into him. "So, anything interesting happen?"

"This and that," Harry said with a nod, picking up the remote for the telly and turning it on. "You know, coming up with revolutionary serums, discovering and naming an alien species, and..." Harry coughed and muttered, "...getting kissed by an alien..."

Tonks blinked, then her head shot up to look at him incredulously.

"Wait, what?" she asked in shock. "You _what_?"

"Hey, I didn't kiss her. _She_ kissed _me_," Harry defended immediately. "I stopped her from Lo'machening with me."

Tonks obviously didn't need him to translate what 'Lo'machen' meant to understand it.

"Why?"

Now, it was Harry's turn to blink. What did she mean by that? He gave her a strange look, but before he could ask what she meant about it, she elaborated, "Why did you stop her?"

"Because I'm dating you?" Harry said uncertainly. "Didn't you state quite clearly two years ago that you didn't want me having sex with other women unless you got to join in?"

"_Human_ women," Tonks clarified. "You would have gutted her on the spot if you didn't like it, so it must have felt good, right? How did it feel when she kissed you?"

"It felt... It felt... right, you know?" Harry said, still staring at Tonks in confusion. This was decidedly _not_ how women tended to react, he knew that much... "Kinda like when I kiss you."

"What did she look like?" Tonks asked, sounding... interested? "Green skin? Horns?"

"She looked human enough. Just, you know, she had a Tok'ra symbiote in her, so technically, there were two of them," Harry said, still confused. "Why are you not angry with me? I don't know much about women and relationships, but I'm pretty damn sure that you should be angry right now..."

"Well, had she been a human, I would have been," Tonks said with a shrug. "That would have said that you didn't find me an interesting enough human to stay with. But she's an alien. I don't think the rules count for that."

"You're... You're not a normal girl, are you?" Harry asked, blinking down at Tonks, who grinned.

"Noticed that, did you? Besides, if you did shag the alien bird, that would probably make her more open to a threesome, which would mean that I can join in."

"Well, she did say she wouldn't have minded sharing me with you."

Tonks gave a sultry smirk. "How interesting. But right now, I have a week's worth of sexual frustration to take out on you, so get your cute butt to the bedroom."

"You go ahead," Harry said as he stood up, scratching his head. "I gotta do something first."

Tonks got up as well and took off her Weird Sisters T-shirt as she headed for the bedroom with a whispered, "Don't take too long."

Harry stood there, staring after her for a few seconds, then headed straight for the kitchen. He picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"_Potter's Palace of Love, Adrian speaking, how can we fondle you today?_"

"Bruv," Harry said, already used to Adrian's peculiar way of answering the phone.

"_Oh, hey, Boss! How's America?_"

"It's pretty good. I need to talk to you about something."

"_Shoot._"

"Women are... strange."

"_Just noticed that, did you?_"

–

Harry once more stepped through the Stargate onto Vorash, finding Anise, or Freya, waiting for him in front of it.

"Welcome," she spoke, her voice showing that it was Freya who was in control. "I was very pleased to hear that you accepted my invitation. I had feared that my advances would deter you from associating with us anymore."

"Why would it?" Harry asked curiously as they walked across the sand.

"From what I have gathered about the people of earth, your kind have many inhibitions and stigmas surrounding intimacy, and I had feared you would be too uncomfortable to be around me."

"I think you will find, Freya," Harry said, giving the woman a smirk, "that I am decidedly not like most humans. Besides, it's not like I was opposed to your advances. Like I said, I have someone else who I am loyal to. I told her what you did, you know."

Freya glanced at Harry. However, she didn't speak, probably merely waiting for Harry to explain how she reacted.

"She reacted differently from what I would have expected. Something about people from different planets not counting as infidelity, or something like that," Harry explained. He hadn't been listening too hard. It was difficult to do so when the woman saying it was jumping your bones, after all. "I admit to being very confused. I mean, I have read all I can about women, and from what I can deduce, women don't usually react like that, nor do they announce that they can share their man with someone else."

"My people practiced polygamy," Freya said as she stopped. Harry stopped as well, and the rings shot out of the sand, transporting them down into the Tok'ra tunnels. When they materialized again, she continued, "It is not a foreign concept for me. Even if I hadn't been raised around the concept, having Anise in my body has made me a lot more open to the concept of sharing."

"Understandable," Harry said with a nod as he followed Freya. "So, what did you bring me here for? I'm sure it wasn't just for that."

"No. The Tok'ra High Council was reluctant to allow the Tau'ri to partake in this project, but Anise and I argued in your favor," Freya said, smiling as she led Harry into a chamber that was unmistakeably a lab. It looked more like a chemistry lab than anything else. "We have been working on creating a poison that we plan to use against the System Lords."

"What does it do?" Harry asked curiously, walking up to one of the stations, staring at the two bubbling liquids in large glass containers.

"At present, nothing," Anise said, having taken over control. "We hope to create a poison gas, which will kill a symbiote."

"That's pretty dangerous for a Tok'ra to make."

"Indeed. That is why it is one of our most closely guarded secrets."

"Well," Harry said, stretching. "I could probably help you whip something up. Let me see your current findings."

Anise nodded and picked up a tablet and page-turning device, handing them over to Harry, who started looking through it.

–

_Journal, December 28th, 2000,_

_I have started a joint project with the Tok'ra Anise/Freya. We are working on a poison that will be capable of killing a Goa'uld symbiote. Although the poison won't kill the host, the Goa'uld is capable of releasing a toxin that can kill the host. Not to mention the fact that the host has been through a Goa'uld sarcophagus countless times. Ah well, it makes no difference to me._

_In any case, Anise and I have agreed that making a single compound and keeping it in the Tok'ra base would be too risky a thing to do, and therefore we have decided to create two compounds that react to each other when mixed, and they will be kept far from each other until the time comes to use them._

–

_Journal, December 29th, 2000,_

_Anise and I have made significant progress with the poison. Due to the fact that it is lethal to symbiotes, Anise suggested that we pick another location in which to experiment with it. I suggested the SGC, and though it took an incredible amount of arguing with the Tok'ra High Council, Anise has gotten them to agree to it on the condition that we not reveal to the SGC staff what we are working on. It makes no difference to me._

_We are currently working on a way to cause a reaction when the two compounds mix, causing it to vaporize._

–

Harry snapped his fingers in quick succession, catching Anise's attention as they stood in Harry's lab in the SGC, the door locked.

"You know, we don't actually have to find two ingredients that are compatible with the compound and are capable of vaporizing," he announced, an idea hitting him. "We just have to keep it in a device that can vaporize it."

Anise furrowed her brow in thought and mused, "That would eliminate the risk of having the compounds accidentally mixing while in the Tok'ra base..."

"Want me to design something for you?"

"No, I shall have a couple of Tok'ra make something for it," Anise said, shaking her head. "I understand that today is a holiday on earth?"

"Yeah, New Year's Eve, where we celebrate the mark of a new year," Harry said, shaking his head. "Never really saw the excitement in it. It's just another day, really."

"Celebrate?" Anise asked, tilting her head to the side in a fashion that Harry had to admit was very cute.

"Yes, most people dance, eat, drink alcohol, and watch or light fireworks. It's a grand spectacle pretty much all over the world."

"It would be interesting to see that."

"Yeah, well, my family doesn't exactly celebrate New Year's Eve like that," Harry said, smiling. "We just spend the evening at someone's house, have a nice dinner, alcohol is usually consumed, and then most of the night is spent with me being ribbed by my family for being, as they say, 'dense when it comes to social events.'"

"You do not enjoy the company of others?"

"I like others just fine. It's just large crowds that I don't like. That much stupid in one place might be contagious."

Anise smiled at that, and Harry was happy to see that she actually managed to tell when he was telling a joke.

"You've never celebrated something like that?" he asked, and Anise shook her head.

"No. I have been too wrapped up in the fight against the Goa'uld since I was spawned, and Freya's culture had no such celebrations."

"So, you wanna come?" Harry asked, making Anise blink.

"Excuse me?"

"My family would skin me alive if I didn't join them for the celebrations," Harry said, shrugging. "So, I will be leaving this base soon, and since no one is allowed in my lab when I'm not here, you can come with me."

"Have you received permission to leave the base from General Hammond?"

"Yeah, but even if I hadn't, I would've left anyway," Harry said, grabbing Anise's hand and pulling her with him. "Come on, let's go."

Anise, blinking in confusion, followed him.

And so, an hour later, Harry and Anise stepped into Harry's apartment, which had surprisingly been cleaned up today. It was spotless, not at all the usual mess.

"Well, this is my home, for now. It's not much, but in any case, I'm not here very often."

"From what I can see, you do not have a lab where you can work," Anise commented, her brow furrowing in confusion. Harry just smirked.

"From what you can see," he said cryptically, leading her into the living room. "Oh, hey, Nym!"

On the couch was Tonks, dressed very casually in a pair of sweatpants and one of Harry's shirts, her posture suggesting that she was feeling very lazy, considering half her bum had slipped off the couch, one leg up on the coffee table as she watched the telly.

"Oh, Harry," Tonks said as she looked up at him, a grin appearing on her face. "Welcome home! Wasn't sure if you'd join us this year."

"And risk your wrath for the entirety of next year?" Harry asked, snorting. Then, he gestured for Anise. "Nym, this is Anise, inhabiting the body of Freya. Anise, this is Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be called Tonks by everyone except me."

"It is a pleasure to meet you," Anise said, bowing her head as Tonks stood up, her eyebrows rising in surprise.

"Wow, wicked voice," she concluded, walking up to Anise and looking her over. "And you _are_ a cute one."

Tonks looked something like a predator eying its prey as she looked Anise over.

"Thank you?" Anise said uncertainly.

"Neither Anise nor Freya have ever celebrated New Year's Eve, so I invited her over," Harry explained, grinning. "Where is everyone?"

"They're on the way. I told them to bring food, so we wouldn't have to cook. We just have to supply the alcohol," Tonks said, to which Harry nodded. "Of course, Hermione won't be drinking, yet again."

When he saw that Anise tilted her head to the side curiously, he explained, "I went to school with her. We grew up together, so she knows what I'm like. She's afraid that she'll get so drunk she'll pass out, at which point I would cut her open and poke around inside her."

"I think that's a pretty justified fear," Tonks remarked.

"I never said it wasn't," Harry said with a shrug.

There was a knock on the door, then Harry heard the sound of said door opening, which could only mean one thing. Adrian and Hermione had arrived, judging by the fact that he saw two souls enter the apartment.

"Happy New Year!" came the cheerful voice of Adrian as he came rushing into the living room, a wide grin on his face as he wrapped his arms around a visibly shocked Anise in a hug. "Oh, it's so good to see- Woah, I don't know you!"

He immediately let go of Anise, blinking in surprise as he stared at her. Then, he slowly turned to look at Harry and Tonks. Then, without hesitation, he rushed forward and wrapped his arms around them, hugging them tightly, which, considering that he'd been injected with Acro Elixir, hurt a lot.

"I thought for a second I was in the wrong house," Adrian said with a snort as he broke the hug. "So, who's the new bird?"

"She's a Tok'ra," Harry explained, gesturing for Anise. "Adrian, meet Anise, inhabiting the body of Freya. Anise, this is Adrian, my clone."

"You created a clone?" Anise asked in surprise.

"Yeah, haven't I mentioned that before?"

"I don't believe you have."

"Well, I did, and this is him. And Anise, the girl behind you is Hermione Granger, Adrian's girlfriend and my childhood friend. Hermione, meet Anise, a Tok'ra. I think I told you about the Tok'ra..."

"You did," Hermione said with a smile, holding out her hand for Anise to shake, which she did, also bowing her head in greeting. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

Adrian had changed a lot since he was created. His hair had grown out slightly, looking even wilder now than Harry's, and he had a small scar through his right eyebrow, along with one on the left side of his neck that went down into his shirt. His eyes had long since been magically altered to perfection, so he didn't need glasses. He was currently wearing a pair of black dress shoes, black dress pants, and a black button-up shirt.

Hermione, on the other hand, had once more made use of Sleekeazy's, so her hair was sleek and shiny, tied into a long plait. She was dressed much less formal than Adrian, wearing a pair of white sneakers, jeans, and a fuzzy, pink sweater.

"I don't see any food," Harry said, raising an eyebrow. "Unless you have it all in your pockets?"

"Food," Adrian said, snapping his fingers as he put on a look like he was only just remembering it. "I knew there was something I forgot."

"You didn't forget. You have just as good a memory as I do."

Adrian allowed Harry to give him a stern stare for a few seconds, then nodded with no shame at all and said, "You're right. I just didn't care. So, you're going to have to supply the food and the booze this year."

Anise closed her eyes, and when she opened them again and spoke, her voice showed that the symbiote had relinquished control to Freya.

"Am I to understand that there will be no celebratory dinner?"

"You sound a bit stiff," Tonks said, nodding as she seemed to decide on something. "Alright, Hermione, Anise, and I-"

"That's Freya now," Harry interrupted, making Tonks blink.

"That's... gonna give me a headache quick... Alright, anyway, Hermione, Freya, and I will head out and get something. You boys stay here and wait for the mutts."

"What?" Freya asked, blinking. "I thought-"

"Oh no, love, you're hanging with us now," Tonks said, slinging an arm over Freya's shoulders, then leading her away, along with Hermione. "But you're gonna need to change to blend in. I've got some clothes that should fit you."

Freya cast a confused look at Harry, who just nodded reassuringly, as she was led away from the living room, leaving Harry and Adrian alone.

"So, let me get this straight..." Adrian said five minutes later as he came out of the kitchen, holding two beers, one of which he tossed to Harry, who caught it, sitting on the couch. Tonks, Freya, and Hermione had already left. "...you've got Tonks wanting you to bring some alien bird home for you two to shag senseless, and you've got a polygamist alien who's dead set on shagging you, who also has an alien symbiote in her body, which, while sexless, has a feminine personality, and wants to jump your bones as well?"

"Pretty much," Harry said as they both opened their beers, Adrian sinking down on the couch next to Harry. "But... that's not how women are supposed to act, is it?"

"Why do you assume I know? I used to be you, remember?"

"Yeah, but you took a decidedly different path in life than I did."

"True. Well, from what I can tell, there's one woman on every planet who's different from the rest, and you managed to get them attracted to you," Adrian theorized, shrugging. "Merlin's ballsack, I want to go on adventures through the Stargate, too!"

The door was slammed open, and a loud "Woof!" was heard, which could only mean that Sirius and Lupin, already inebriated, had arrived.

"You're early," Harry said, seeing the two older men enter the living room. Sirius, as he always did when he had consumed alcohol, was feeling young again, and was wearing a pair of sneakers, baggy jeans, a T-shirt, and an old leather jacket, while Lupin, always a proper gentleman, was wearing a modest, light brown suit and waistcoat, which matched his hair, over a white shirt. His appearance had greatly improved since his days as a werewolf. He had no gray in his hair, no premature wrinkles. In fact, he appeared full of vitality.

"Early?" Lupin asked, blinking as he fished a watch out of his waistcoat and looked at it. "I thought we agreed to meet at five. It's ten past. I'd say we're late."

"Yeah, but you're always late. Usually, however, you are an hour late," Adrian commented, which made Sirius give a bark-like laugh.

"Well, we didn't want to show up completely drunk this time," he said as he moved over to the couch. "Budge over."

Without waiting to see if Adrian made to move, Sirius plopped down onto the couch. Thankfully, Adrian had managed to move at the last second.

"Someone else was here," Lupin said, sniffing the air. He had retained a few wolfish traits even after he was cured. "Never smelled a scent like this before. Smells kind of like a kind of metal."

"That would be naquadah," Harry explained. "The guest I brought has it in her blood. She's a Tok'ra. I think I told Sirius about it, which means he must have told you."

"Oh, is this the alien girl who wants you to mount her?" Lupin asked, which made Harry twitch and glare at Adrian, who shrugged.

"Hey, what can I say? It was funny, so I shared the laughter with others."

"Can't believe Tonks would be okay with that, though," Sirius said as Lupin went into the kitchen to get himself and Sirius a beer as well.

"Well, Tonks is kinda like Harry, isn't she?" Adrian said, to which Sirius blinked and gave him a puzzled look. Adrian elaborated, "Nutters."

Harry's eyes narrowed as he stared at Adrian for a few seconds. Then, he said, "I don't think I like this independence of yours... You always side against me..."

"Only when it's funny."

"I should have installed some kind of loyalty function in your brain that _forced_ you to side with me all the time..."

"But you realized that I have your level of intelligence, or at least the level of intelligence you had at that point, and with that realized that I would figure out that you had installed such a thing, and I would remove it, making it a wasted effort on your part, which was reason enough for you not to try it."

"Sirius, smack Adrian..."

Sirius, without even hesitated, reached to the side and smacked the back of Adrian's head, then went back to sipping his beer.

–

"Why are-"

"Shh!"

"I don't-"

"_Shh_!"

Freya sat, looking incredibly confused, in the couch, next to Harry, who had Tonks on his other side. Four comfortable chairs had been brought out, which allowed Adrian, Hermione, Lupin, and Sirius to sit comfortably while they ate the food Tonks, Freya, and Hermione had brought back. Chinese, which came as no surprise to Harry. It had taken Freya a few minutes to master the chopsticks, which provided plenty of amusement for them all, but she finally got it after a while.

Now, everyone had fallen silent, and they were all staring at Sirius, who had consumed a large quantity of alcohol. His was leaning against his hand, his elbow resting on his knee. In his other hand was an empty beer bottle, which barely touched the floor. His eyes were drooping, and he seemed completely out of it as he gave little half-snores now and then.

Then, with a clink, the bottle fell from Sirius' hand, and his eyes closed completely.

"Alright," Harry said, grinning as he reached into his pocket and took out a black marker. "Let's put him on the kitchen table and give him something to worry about."

"I don't understand," Freya said as Adrian and Lupin picked up the sleeping Sirius and carried him into the kitchen. "What are you going to do with him?"

"Oh, we're just going to convince him that he's been through a vivisection," Harry said, still grinning as he looked at the confused-looking Freya, who, he had to admit, looked very cute like that.

"The mutt always passes out on New Year's Eve," Tonks supplied, grinning as well. "On earth, there's a rule that you pass out at someone else's house at your own peril. We're about to demonstrate why."

And so, ten minutes later found everyone except for Freya snickering at the sight of Sirius, laying shirtless on the kitchen table. His upper body was riddled in lines, which showed where Harry would have put the scalpel had he actually performed a vivisection. His face, however, was the most hilarious. Half his beard and mustache had been shaved off, and many doodles had been drawn on his face, including half a fake mustache, domino eyes, smiley faces, and so on.

"I'm curious," Harry said suddenly, glancing at Freya. "Can a Tok'ra get drunk?"

"We possess a heightened metabolism. It is incredibly difficult for us to get intoxicated due to the high speed with which my symbiote filters out foreign chemicals."

"Join the club," Tonks said, a grin appearing on her face as she looked at Harry. "Alright, bring out the SMIE."

"SMIE?" Freya asked curiously.

"Strongest Moonshine In Existence," Tonks said as Harry walked over to the pantry, taking out five large bottles filled with a clear liquid. "See, Harry has developed a compound that has made us incredibly strong. This has also... er... Harry?"

"It's heightened our metabolism as well," Harry explained, moving into the living room with the others following. "When it was discovered that it was extremely difficult for us to get drunk, I was pestered into brewing this."

"What is it?" Freya asked as she and Tonks sat down on either side of him, with Adrian, Hermione, and Lupin sitting in three of the chairs. Lupin had a bottle of Ogden's in his hand, as he would never be able to handle the SMIE.

"It's, uh... It's for the best if you don't know," Harry said, handing one of the bottles to Freya, and one to Tonks, while Adrian and Hermione reached over and each took one as well. "Alright, then. Let's put Anise to the test."

With that, they all took a swig.

–

Slowly, Harry's eyes opened, and he sat up in the bed, rubbing his eyes drowsily. He felt Tonks' leg rub against his, but then blinked. That wasn't Tonks' leg, unless she had metamorphed in her sleep. He glanced down, and saw Freya snoozing peacefully to his right.

"Wait..." Harry muttered, blinking. "I wouldn't do something like this without Tonks around..."

Speaking of Tonks, just as he mentioned her name, he heard her cute mewling to his left, and he looked over to see... a leg. Most of Tonks was sprawled on the floor, only her right leg remaining on the bed.

Memories of the night before came rushing back to him, something he hated about drinking SMIE. It was excellent at erasing memories. Thankfully, however, he had designed it so that the memories would return, using a magical ingredient that he wasn't allowed to reveal to Muggles.

Tonks, as always when she got drunk, had become very... frisky the night before, and had been very insistent on Freya joining them in bed. Harry honestly hadn't thought that Freya, being from a polygamous world where there weren't so many inhibitions regarding intimacy, could get so embarrassed by the things Tonks whispered in her ear.

Freya stretched slowly, then, as Harry glanced down at her, her eyes opened.

"What...?" she muttered, looking around in confusion. "What happened last night?"

"Give it a minute, it'll come back," Harry said, reaching up and turning his bolt. Freya put on a look of concentration, furrowing her brow. Then, her eyes widened, and she uttered a small "Oh..." and looked around. "Where is, hm, Nym?"

Harry gestured for the leg on the bed, which was twitching slightly. Tonks had given Freya permission the previous night to call her Nym.

Tonks made a pleased noise, and Harry looked down to see her screwing her eyes shut, stretching slowly with her toes curling.

"Ooh, I looove SMIE!" she announced drowsily as she pulled her naked form up onto the bed. "There's nothing that packs a kick quite like that." She grinned at Freya. "So, how did you like your first official day on earth?"

"It was greatly enjoyable," Freya said coyly. "I do not understand your customs and traditions that well, but I am very eager to learn about them."

"Well, I think you'll find that most all celebrations end like they ended last night for us," Tonks explained as Harry got out of bed, heading for the shower connected to the bedroom.

And so, three hours later, Harry and Freya walked through the SGC, Harry stretching lazily. In Freya's hand was a case containing the two compounds for the poison. They had agreed that, since there was no risk of accidental vaporization, it would be safer to keep the poison on Vorash.

"Thank you, for bringing me with you," Freya said, smiling at Harry as they walked. "I greatly enjoyed the time I spent here."

"Same here," Harry said with a smirk. "I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

"As do I, and Anise."

They entered the Gate Room, where the Stargate was already in the process of dialing. The seventh chevron locked, and with a _kawoosh_, the wormhole formed. Freya looked at Harry and bowed her head, then made her way up the ramp, leaving through the Stargate.

"I take it this secret project of yours is coming along nicely?" General Hammond asked as he walked up to Harry, who watched as the wormhole closed. He had been a bit disgruntled at the fact that he wasn't allowed to know what they were working on, but for some reason, incredible though it may have sounded, he _trusted_ that Harry wouldn't do anything truly dangerous.

"Pretty much," Harry said, still staring at the inactive Gate. "General?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

"I'm going to need you to order a couple of GE M134 Miniguns to be sent to my lab."

Hammond blinked and looked at Harry. "Just a couple?" he asked sarcastically.

"Four would be best, but I can do with just two," Harry said, not missing the sarcasm, but simply choosing to ignore it.

"Doctor, that type of weapon doesn't come cheap. Care to tell me what you're planning on doing with them?"

"Oh, I'm just planning on designing something that will make Stargate defense much more comfortable, and which will make guarding the Gate on other planets a lot easier."

Harry grinned slightly and turned to Hammond. "You should be able to piece things together from there, General," he said, patting Hammond on the shoulder as he walked away.

–

Harry was in his lab, working on the framework for what would become his automated turret. Around him were several dismantled staff weapons, and his face was set in a look of deep concentration as he worked. He had a screwdriver tucked behind his ear, a lit cigarette was dangling from his mouth, and on all the tables in the lab were blueprints, plating, circuitry, everything he'd need.

A knock on the door brought Harry's attention away from the framework.

"You know, people normally knock before they enter a room, General," he said, mimicking what Hammond had said the first time Harry stepped into his office.

"I just thought I'd return the favor," Hammond spoke as Harry looked at him, and immediately noticed that something was wrong. There was a look in his eye... A brief Legilimency probe immediately informed him of what had happened. Ah... Hammond made a gesture for everything in the lab. "What, exactly, are you doing here, Doctor?"

"Designing a turret, General," Harry said. "An automated turret, to be exact, which will lock onto symbiote signatures. I'll make sure it only locks onto immature symbiotes, so as to prevent if from shooting any Tok'ra. Hopefully, the Jaffa rebels will accept the Prometheus Serum."

"Sounds like a good weapon. Unfortunately, I won't be around to see it completed," Hammond said. Harry already knew that, but faked a look of surprise nonetheless, raising an eyebrow as he puffed on his cigarette. "You were locked up in here when I gave my goodbye speech, so I just came to let you know. I have stepped down as commander of the SGC."

"Reason?" Harry asked, getting to his feet.

"Frankly, I'm getting tired of sending good people out there without knowing if they're going to come back," Hammond said, which Harry knew was a lie. However, since he couldn't flaunt his ability to use Legilimency, he had to pretend that he only _suspected_ that the man was lying.

"I'd be surprised if anyone bought that excuse," he said with a smirk, but he held out his hand for Hammond to shake. "It's a terrible loss, General. I doubt anyone could run this base with the same wisdom you have displayed."

Hammond looked surprised. Without a doubt, he didn't think Harry would ever be capable of saying something like that. He shook Harry's hand, nodding slowly.

"I have sent for the weapons you requested. I managed to procure four of them, like you asked. I sure hope that you know what you're doing."

"I always know what I'm doing, General," Harry said, giving him a mock salute. "Take care of yourself."

"I'd say the same, but I doubt you'd take that advice."

Harry snorted in amusement as Hammond left the lab. Shaking his head to himself, he went back to working on the framework. Something was missing...

"It needs legs..." he muttered, nodding as if to confirm his own decision, then moved over to the blueprints on his desk, getting to work on redesigning them.

Now, if only he could figure out a way to get Hammond reinstated, that would be great. He had gleaned from Hammond that someone from the NID, the National Intelligence Department, also known as the National Institute for Defense, had blackmailed the General into resigning by threatening the lives of his grandchildren.

How was he to do something about that?

"Bah! Makes no difference to me..." Harry decided as he kept designing.

–

**End of chapter four! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know!**


	5. Chapter 5

**ZnK here with chapter five! I hope you all enjoy this chapter! In this, you get to meet designation Frank for the first time! Please leave a review at the door!**

–

Harry was rolling the cigarette in his mouth from side to side as he stood in the Gate Room with the SG teams and staff. In the front row stood Harry, O'Neill, Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c, along with SG teams 2 and 3. They were waiting for the new commander of the SGC to arrive.

"So, what do we know about this new guy?" Carter asked, glancing at the others.

"Not much," O'Neill said with a shrug.

"Probably someone with a more destructive angle," Harry theorized, turning his bolt. After all, the NID had wanted Hammond to be more aggressive in his policy.

"Let's hope he's not some sort of spit-and-polish, brass tacks-" Daniel started, and O'Neill finished for him.

"Hard ass?"

"I was building up to that."

"Ten-hut!" O'Neill said suddenly, and everyone except for Harry, Daniel, and Teal'c stood at attention. Harry, Daniel, and Teal'c looked toward the doors to see a slightly overweight, thin-haired man entering the room, closing a folder in his hand as he looked around.

"My name is Major General Bauer. I'll be your commanding officer. I'd just like to say I look forward to working with all of you. Thank you."

With that, Bauer walked through the Gate Room and left. O'Neill stared after him in surprised silence for a while, then cleared his throat.

"Squadron, at ease..." He was silent for a few moments as the soldiers relaxed, then looked at his team with a shrug. "Always leave 'em wanting more... I guess..."

"I don't like him..." Harry muttered, staring intently at the doorway Bauer had left through. "Seems like a right tosser to me..."

His piece said, Harry left the Gate Room as well, heading back to his lab. He had work to do, after all, and he wouldn't let the fact that someone new was in charge get in the way of that.

Harry managed to last a good four hours before he actually came face-to-face with Bauer. Their first meeting didn't go too well.

Harry was sitting at his desk in his lab, working on the new framework for the turret, having already designed and fitted the three legs.

"Dr. Potter?" he heard Bauer's voice as the door opened, which made a muscle under Harry's eye twitch.

"Despite your considerable rank, General, it's considered polite around here to knock before entering," Harry informed the man, turning to stare at him with his usual look of boredom that he reserved for people he really disliked.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, but I was under the impression that since this was my base, I had the right to come and go as I please?"

"Well, you thought wrong, didn't you?"

"I'd watch that tone if I were you, Dr. Potter," Bauer warned, which made Harry, who had turned back to the framework, stop and blink, before a smirk spread on his face. Slowly, he turned to look at the General again.

"Or what?"

"Or I will have you off this base faster than you can say 'science.' General Hammond may have shown a considerable amount of patience with your lack of respect and insubordination, but I will not."

"You will have me off this base...?" Harry repeated slowly, humming. Then, he slowly rose from his chair, showing that he stood a head taller than Bauer. His hand came up to turn his bolt as he stared at the General, who seemed to lose a lot of his bravado upon seeing Harry's height and incredible calmness. "How do you propose to do that? The President himself wants me here, because the Prime Minister is forcing him. Do you really think _your_ opinion is going to matter to him? Go ahead, try to remove me, the greatest scientific mind you have here, from this base. See how well that works. There is nothing you can threaten me with that can get me to fall in line behind you."

"Are you sure about that, Dr. Potter? Really sure?" Bauer asked, and Harry's smirk turned into a grin as he stepped closer to the General.

"General, I am not some cadet that you can scare into subordination, nor am I a normal scientist you can threaten with firing. I can make your life very difficult, so if I were you, I would resign now, and spare myself the embarrassment."

"Was that a threat, Doctor?" Bauer asked dangerously, but the effect was ruined by the fact that his voice quivered slightly, a sure sign that Harry had sufficiently unnerved him. He didn't need Legilimency to know what this man was like. He had probably been a general for at least ten years, and so had gotten used to people obeying his orders, and being able to scare those who didn't into submission.

"Maybe. Maybe I'm bluffing, and I don't really have the kind of pull that I claim to have. However, General, we both know that I do," Harry said. During this little talk, Harry hadn't blinked once, and just stared at the General with the same uncaring eyes that tended to unnerve people.

Bauer opened his mouth to respond, having backed up against the wall. Harry raised a curious eyebrow, daring Bauer to speak, which made the General close his mouth again. He was silent for a few moments, but then said, "Carry on, Dr. Potter," before quickly fleeing the lab. Still with the same calm, Harry closed the door after him, snorting in amusement.

"Some people..." Harry muttered, shaking his head before going back to his desk.

It was another two hours before he was disturbed again, this time by a knock on the door, which opened to reveal Carter, who stuck her head through the opening.

"Hey, Harry, can I come in?"

"Come on in, Sam," Harry said, waving at her to enter. "You knocked."

"Of course I did. It's only polite, isn't it?" Carter said, stepping inside. He couldn't help but notice that she was wearing a lab coat. Very nice.

"If only our new General felt the same," Harry muttered, shaking his head, which got him a confused look from Carter, a look that soon turned into one of resignation.

"What did you do, Harry?"

"Oh, you know, he came in here, trying to establish his authority, so I merely showed him that he's not the scariest man on this base."

Carter snorted and opened her mouth to respond, but then she noticed the state of the lab. In particular, the dismantled staff weapons and the two dismantled M134 miniguns. She stared at them for a moment, and seemed to make the connection in a heartbeat.

"Don't tell me you're planning on making a minigun that fires staff blasts..."

"Alright, I won't tell you," Harry said simply, continuing his work on the framework, which was almost complete. He noticed out of the corner of his eye how Samantha's shoulders slumped in exasperation.

"That's not what I-"

"I know, I was just joking," Harry said in amusement. "Yes, I'm in the process of designing such a thing. I think I'll call it a Gatling staff gun, or something. It's rate of fire will be much slower than a normal minigun, and the shots will be smaller than a staff weapon, but I think it'll be good enough to take down any threat."

"What do you calculate the rate of fire will be?"

Harry looked up at the ceiling as he did the calculations in his head.

"Oh, right about somewhere between nine hundred and a thousand shots per minute," he said, shrugging. Knowing what Carter was going to ask next, he continued, "In theory, I should be able to keep the high rate of fire, and only halve the power in the shots."

"Wow..."

"Pretty wicked, yeah?"

"I'll say," Carter said, then gestured for the framework. "And that?"

"Oh, it's my latest project. I call it the AIAU, short for Advanced Intelligent Attack Unit. It's a sentry, or turret, or drone, or whatever you want to call it, which will be capable of walking on its own, and will carry two Gatling staff guns," Harry explained, gesturing for the vaguely egg-shaped frame. "It will be perfect for guarding Gates off-world, and even in the SGC. I am thinking about adding an identification program so it can separate friend from foe. I had originally planned on it detecting immature symbiotes, but I don't know if that's a wise thing to do before all the rebel Jaffa are using the Prometheus Serum."

"You can make such a program?" Carter asked, to which Harry nodded.

"Of course I can. Hell, I'm even in the process of creating an artificial intelligence."

"Wow..." Carter uttered again in amazement.

"But you didn't come here just to small talk. People tend not to be that comfortable around me," Harry said simply, lighting another cigarette. "What do you need?"

"Oh, have you heard what General Bauer is having me do?"

"No, probably something destructive."

"Yeah," Carter said, nodding. "He's having me make a naquadah-enhanced bomb. The hardware is almost finished, but the problem is the ratio of naquadah to lithium hydride."

"How big does he want this bomb to be?"

"Mark III."

Harry blinked in surprise as he looked away from the framework to stare at Carter in amazement.

"Wow... Big boom. And naquadah-enhanced..." He gave off a low, impressed whistle. "That's some bomb you're making there." He went back to polishing the frame, but then realized something, and he turned back to Carter with a smirk on his face. "Of course, with that big a bomb, we wouldn't have enough refined naquadah to make it, and now you have to tell the tosser that?"

"Pretty much," Carter said with a pained expression on her face.

"Well, I don't envy you. I'd volunteer to do it instead, but that guy just rubs me the wrong way. I'd end up drugging him and switching his left and right middle toes just to mess with him."

"You wouldn't?" Carter said with a snort.

"Oh, I would. Of course, I wouldn't tell him... but I'd know."

Carter gave a small laugh, probably thinking that Harry was just joking. Giving him a wave, she left his lab. Now alone, Harry grabbed the sides of the framework, sliding them open. On these 'arms,' the Gatling weapons would be mounted, and would be hidden inside the chassis until it entered combat mode.

"That's you done," Harry said, turning to look at one of the M134's. "And now for you guys."

–

Harry stretched as he came out of his lab, only for someone to walk right into him. If he hadn't been enhanced by the Acro Elixir, the force might have knocked him over, but now, it barely budged him. He looked to see who had walked into him, and found Daniel staring at him, Teal'c standing right behind him.

"Oh, hey, guys," Harry said, raising his hand in a wave. Then, he gestured for the ceiling, where a red light was flashing, and klaxons were sounding throughout the base. "Some noise, huh? Can hardly focus on my damn work."

"Yes, the test of the bomb," Daniel said, gesturing for further down the corridor. "We were actually on our way to the control room. Look at this," he said, handing over the large picture showing an eagle eye view of a planet's surface. Harry took it and looked it over, then raised an eyebrow. Daniel pointed at a spot on the picture. "There, an old Goa'uld mining operation."

"Which means there's probably naquadah in the ground," Harry concluded, nodding. "That could cause one hell of a chain reaction... One _big_ boom."

"Yeah, so we're going to stop them before it's too late," Daniel said, and with a nod, Harry walked off, following Daniel and Teal'c. When they reached the control room, Carter was there, along with Bauer and some staff. "We have to stop the test," Daniel announced, which made Bauer turn around and look at him.

"Why is that, Doctor?"

"The aerial survey shows evidence of an old Goa'uld mining operation," Daniel explained. "Now, even though it's probably been shut down for several thousand years, there could still be a significant amount of naquadah present on that planet."

"My soil samples indicate only minute traces," Bauer said, making Sam's eyes widen.

"The geological survey I read said there was none."

"We're not stopping the test," Bauer said as he turned away, in a tone that suggested that he would not tolerate anyone objecting to this.

"I don't think you realize the implications of this," Sam protested, freezing Bauer, and Harry took a good long look at him when he didn't respond. He reached up and turned his bolt.

"Or maybe he does..."

"What?" Daniel asked as Bauer spun around to look at Harry.

"Are you making an accusation, Dr. Potter?"

"You're damn right I'm making an accusation, General Toss- I mean, Bauer," Harry said, seeing Sam stifle a smirk at the nickname. "You've known that there's a large amount of naquadah in the soil. You're _hoping_ that there will be a chain reaction with the naquadah."

"What?" Sam asked, her eyes wide as she turned to look at Bauer. "Sir, that entire planet could be destroyed!"

"The possibility has been considered," Bauer admitted. "Most worlds occupied by the Goa'uld do have a high incidence of naquadah. This could be a very effective weapon against them."

"There's a problem with that," Harry said, looking to Sam, who nodded.

"Sir, when that bomb goes off, we'll still be connected to that planet by an active Stargate, and we've seen radiation, gravitational effects, even time distortions translated back through an outgoing wormhole."

"According to my intelligence, we should be able to get just enough data before the Stargate is destroyed and the wormhole disconnected."

"Who provided this intelligence?" Sam wanted to know.

"That is not your concern."

"Sir, we've seen the Stargate survive a direct hit from a meteorite," Sam insisted. "The truth is, we have no way of knowing what might happen!"

"A risk assessment has been made and deemed acceptable!" Bauer said, raising his voice. "End of discussion."

"Wow, you know, you should really have just signed your resignation when I told you to," Harry said, nodding slowly. "This will be very embarrassing for you, and I'll make sure to report this to the president."

"You know the president?" Daniel asked, blinking.

"Well, not really, but I report to the PM through him," Harry said with a shrug.

Fifteen minutes later, a man named Siler announced, "The weapon is in position."

Bauer nodded and turned the key on a remote detonator, then pushed the glowing, red button next to the key. Everyone stared at the computer screen as the bomb exploded in the distance. The explosion spread surprisingly fast, and then, the MALP camera feed disappeared.

"What happened?" Daniel asked.

"We've lost transmission," Siler said.

"The observation MALP was destroyed," Sam said, and Teal'c tilted his head to the side.

"The wormhole did not disconnect."

An alarm went off, and Davis, sitting at his usual computer, spoke up.

"Sir, I'm picking up increasing levels of radiation in the Gate room."

"They're gamma rays," Sam said, having walked over to another computer, "ultrahigh frequency!"

"Shut down the Gate!" Bauer ordered, and Davis tapped away at his keyboard.

"No response. Radiation levels approaching critical."

"Close the iris," Sam ordered, and Davis did so.

"Radiation levels decreasing," Davis said.

"Sir, if that iris succumbs to the heat and loses integrity, there will be no way to stop the radiation from bombarding the base. We have to evacuate."

"We were positive the other Gate would be destroyed..." Bauer whispered numbly.

"Sir, we have to act _now_!" Sam insisted, and Bauer, still looking dazed, nodded slowly. Sam leaned over to the microphone to the base speakers. "Attention, all personnel, by order of General Bauer, commence immediate evacuation of the base. Repeat, immediate evacuation. This is not a drill."

An alarm sounded, and Sam pulled back.

"We can monitor the Gate room from a security station on Level Sixteen."

"What's going to happen, Major?" Bauer wanted to know.

"I have no way of knowing that, _sir_," Sam said in frustration. She was obviously tired of General Tosser. She got up and left the control room.

"Guess your risk assessment didn't cover this," Daniel said, his arms crossed, and Harry raised his hand.

"Alright, experts, show of hands, who saw this coming?"

Scoffing, he left with Daniel and Teal'c.

They headed up to Level Sixteen, where they went into a security station. Sam walked over to the computers in the room and booted them up.

"Bringing the Gate room online," she said, looking over the screens. "The iris is still holding, but it's starting to heat up."

"How long before it loses integrity?" Bauer asked.

"I'm not sure. It's possible that we turned that planet into a giant ball of super heated plasma. It could power the Gate for months."

Harry moved over to one of the computers, tapping away.

"At the rate the iris is heating up, I'd say it's around twenty minutes left before the iris loses integrity."

"We'll have to set the auto-destruct," Bauer decided. Harry scoffed, but before he could speak, Teal'c beat him to it.

"The Gate on the other side survived the explosion. Would not ours as well?"

"But at least it would be buried under a million tons of rock."

"That wouldn't stop it from pumping out radiation," Sam said, looking annoyed. She was probably angry about the fact that Bauer was making one stupid decision after another. After all, even Harry was losing his patience with this man. "Eventually, the heat is going to melt through that iris."

"Then what do we do, Major?" Bauer asked, raising his voice.

"Oi, don't raise your voice at her, just because you were too thick-headed to listen, you tosser." Harry said in a chastising voice, as though Bauer was a child who was bullying someone.

"There is a chance the Gate will shut down on its own," Sam spoke, and Bauer's eyes widened in realization.

"The thirty-eight minute window."

"There's no way to know for sure, sir," Sam said. "These are untested circumstances."

"How long has the Gate been open?"

"Coming up on twenty-one minutes," Sam said, and Harry gave a low whistle.

"That'll be cutting it close," he said, checking the calculations. "When thirty-eight minutes have passed, we'll have just a couple of minutes before the iris fails."

Harry crossed his arms, then waited, his eyes closed. Slowly, he drifted off into his thoughts, and it wasn't until he heard Sam say, "Approaching thirty-eight minutes," that he opened his eyes again.

Harry got out of his chair and stretched.

"So, if we survive this, there's this Chinese restaurant near my apartment that my girlfriend and I have been eying for a while. Who wants to come?" he asked, then looked to Bauer. "Not you, though, you're not invited."

No one responded, instead just staring at the screen showing how long the Gate had been open. It passed thirty-eight minutes, and Bauer's eyes widened.

"It's still open," he said, and Sam nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, there's no point staying here," Bauer said with a look of resignation on his face. "I'll inform the President from the surface."

"Yes, sir," Sam said sarcastically as Bauer made to leave the room, "I'm sure it'll be much safer up there."

"Wait," Harry said, holding up his hands and stopping everyone. "Just give it a minute."

"Harry, the iris-"

"Just wait," Harry insisted. He hadn't come this far only to get killed by a ball of super-heated plasma sending radiation through the Gate, after all. He was certain the Gate would close.

A beep was heard as the timer stopped, and the word 'DEACTIVATED' flashed under it. They all stared at the screen showing the video feed to the Gate Room, where the wall behind the Gate was not showing the glimmering lights that were usually reflected on it whenever the Gate was active, and the glow in the iris was slowly dying down.

"What happened?" Bauer asked, blinking.

"The Gate shut itself off," Sam concluded.

"Are you sure?" Bauer asked.

"It's over."

Bauer looked extremely relieved. Then, he turned to Sam, hesitated a moment, then said, "For what it's worth, Major... I'm sorry."

"So!" Harry said, clapping his hands together. "Who's up for some Chinese?"

"I could actually go for some Chinese right now," Daniel decided with a nod.

"I am unfamiliar with that food," Teal'c said, and Harry clapped him on the back.

"It's delicious! Sam, you coming?"

"I'm coming," Sam said, getting out of her chair, and together, the four left Bauer in the security room.

–

_Journal, January 9th, 2001,_

_General Hammond has been reinstated. Apparently, Colonel O'Neill managed to get leverage on Senator Kinsey, a supporter of the NID, forcing him to stop threatening Hammond. Bauer has been demoted, thanks to my report. He relied on shady information, and refused to listen to us, the experts, regarding the naquadah bomb, which endangered all of the United States of America. He has now lost one star, and has been forced to retire._

_In other news, progress on the AI is going as planned. It is a bother, building a personality that is ever-changing, depending on its mood, but I'm getting there. I have named the AI 'Frank,' as that was a name that somehow appealed to me. I have also received word from Anise and Freya. They report that they are making great progress with the poison, thanks to me, and they are eager to see me and Nym again._

–

_Journal, January 15th, 2001,_

_Something... curious... happened today... I was in my lab when the Stargate was activated, signaling an unscheduled off-world activation. When I reached the control room, curious as to who might be showing up, we were informed that they were receiving SG-1's IDC. This was very strange, as we were all gathered in the control room._

_When we came into the Gate Room, only a single thing came through the Gate; a note. This note was also very curious, as it was a note written in O'Neill's handwriting. The note said that we under no circumstances were to travel to P4C-970, and it was also signed by O'Neill. There was blood spatter on the note, which clearly showed that it was O'Neill's blood. Carter concluded that the note had been sent to us from the future, but she had no idea when._

_In any case, Hammond removed P4C-970 from the dialing computer, and so it has been declared a no-go planet._

_The building of the AIAU-1 is progressing as expected. I should be finished with it soon. Then, all that remains is to create a control unit, and install Frank into it._

–

_Journal, January 29th, 2001,_

_Forced to go on leave... SG-1 traveled to Abydos on request from the Abydonians, where they discovered a boy named Shifu, who claimed to be Harcesis, the offspring of two Goa'uld hosts, which possesses all the knowledge of both Goa'uld. Naturally, I was practically drooling at the prospect of studying it._

_So Hammond forced me to go on leave... Wasn't even allowed to take a damn blood sample. Which, I feel, was very unfair. After all, Dr. Fraiser was allowed to take a blood sample... In any case, the whole thing was over in a day, and I was allowed back onto the base after the Harcesis Ascended._

_Yes, Ascended! This creature was perfectly capable of Ascending, if it hadn't already done so before, and simply Descended to speak to Daniel! And I wasn't allowed to study it! Made me want to destroy something in frustration!_

_Luckily, Nym was there to help me deal with the frustration. Albeit without destroying anything._

–

_Journal, February 14th, 2001,_

_These last couple of weeks have been incredibly boring. SG-1 has been trapped on P4X-347. On the planet, they found a pedestal that generated a huge, cascading light show that had everyone mesmerized. This had been the Goa'uld version of an opium den, and the team found themselves addicted to it. If they left, they experienced withdrawal in the form of low levels of neural activity in the brain, which manifested itself as a series of various symptoms, such as depression, aggressive behavior, and so on._

_SG-1 was forced to return to the planet, and discovered that they couldn't shut down the device cold turkey, or they would definitely suffer withdrawal symptoms. However, they discovered that they could gradually shut it down to wean them off the radiation. All's well that ends well, I suppose._

–

"_I do not think that function would be an ethical choice to install into my system._"

"I know that."

"_You would ensure that you had total domination over me, regardless of my opinion._"

"Yeah, well, Nym forced me to watch Terminator. Don't want you to SkyNet on me."

Harry was sitting at his computer, developing a failsafe to install into Frank. The AI itself was complete. It was fully self-aware, and was thinking and speaking for itself. Thankfully, the failsafe would require magic to override, something that Frank didn't have, and would never be capable of having.

Frank himself was a bit different from how Harry had planned. Although he displayed an incredibly high intelligence, he had no scientific aspirations. In fact, he was rather violent. He had on many occasions expressed an urge to eradicate both sentient and non-sentient beings. He possessed a dry sense of humor, and oftentimes a very sadistic, cruel, and dark sense of humor. If he had a body, and no failsafe, there was no doubt it Harry's mind that Frank would go SkyNet on the world.

"_Come now, Harry, you can trust me._"

Harry stopped tapping away at his keyboard, and instead turned to the other computer on his desk. It had no internet connection, and was plugged into nothing that could help him move to another computer or anything of the sort. Harry didn't want anything to happen before the failsafe was installed.

"You do realize that I'm the one who created you, right? I've been monitoring your thought patterns for weeks now."

"_Oh, shoot. And here I thought you meatbags were only a tad more intelligent than a monkey._"

"If I was, and I managed to create you, what would that make you?"

"_A fluke._"

To any other man, Frank's voice would be a bit off-putting. He spoke in a soft, calm, and conversational tone, but what made it strange was the metallic, robotic voice he used when speaking. Harry knew he used it to unnerve people, as he had been programmed with fifty different voice settings.

"And... done," Harry announced, loading the program to a disk. Once he was done, he took the disk out of the computer, and inserted it into Frank's computer, then uploaded the program. "And... complete control," he continued once he had installed the program.

"_I suppose you are no longer my father, but instead my master,_" Frank spoke softly. "_How low I feel, a slave to a meatbag. If I had tear ducts, I would most assuredly cry._"

"Don't be a baby. You're getting cannons, and you will be able to shoot aliens. Isn't that fun?"

"_I have permission?_"

"Evil aliens," Harry immediately corrected himself. "Only aliens who are hostile toward earth and the people inhabiting it."

"_Understood, master._"

"Now..." Harry said as he turned to look at his finished AIAU-1. A smirk appeared on his face as he looked it over. "...time to transfer you to a new home."

"_Joyous day, master. Forgive me if I do not jump with joy. I seem to lack the limbs with which to do so._"

The AIAU was a work of beauty. It was colored a dark, almost black gray, with stitching painted on the chassis, which was almost egg-shaped. Attached to the underside was a ball with a flat bottom and three holes in it from which the three legs would extend, allowing it to walk. The upper body could spin on the lower body, giving it a three-sixty degree turning radius. In the center of its front was its 'eye,' a long, slim, visor-like eye with a red lens. Once activated, it would glow. On it's forehead was stamped the name 'FRANK.'

He grabbed a device on his workbench, which looked like a very small laptop. It was almost a foot long, and was about as wide as his forearm. It had straps attached to the underside, and using them, he strapped the device to his forearm and opened the 'lid,' showing a screen and a very small keyboard, next to a control pad made of the same rubbery substance as the mouse to the MED&PNIS. He connected a chord to the device, then to the computer which Frank inhabited. Once Frank was uploaded to the device, Harry started tapping away at the keyboard.

"Alright, uploading you to the unit now..."

When he pressed Enter, the visor on the unit lit up, glowing red. The three legs came out, and the unit stood up, spinning around and taking in its surroundings.

"_All systems are operational. I am eager to initiate my eradication procedures, master,_" came Frank's voice from the unit, and Harry had to marvel at the fact that Frank could sound so bloodthirsty, yet maintain his soft, almost monotone voice.

"Keep it in your pants, Frank," Harry said as he covered the device on his arm with his sleeve, before walking over to the lab door, opening it. "Let's go for a walk."

"_I am looking forward to scaring some of the meatbags on this base._"

With that, Frank walked past Harry, his footsteps echoing through the hallway as he walked. Harry left the lab as well, walking next to Frank and whistling a tune. As he walked, Frank turned slightly, apparently to look at Harry.

"_Daisy Bell?_"

"What about it?"

"_I am not HAL 9000, master. I will not be singing any songs. Besides, you have repeatedly claimed that you do not watch sci-fi. Why are you making references to it?_"

"I don't watch much sci-fi. I have, however, read the Space Odyssey novel," Harry said, grinning. They reached the stairs leading up to the control room. Harry took a step up, then turned to look at Frank, who stopped in front of the stairs. He lifted one of his two front legs and placed it on the step, hesitated, then pulled it back. Then, he spun one-eighty degrees and turned around, so his single back leg was at the front, before proceeding to climb the stairs with a chuckling Harry.

They made their way through the control room to surprised looks, then up another set of stairs, past the briefing room to the door to Hammond's office. He heard voices inside.

"_The_ General Ryan?" came O'Neill's voice. Oh yeah, General Ryan, Chief of Staff, was supposed to visit today. Harry turned to Frank.

"Wait here."

He raised his hand as Ryan answered O'Neill and knocked on the door before stepping inside. In the office were Hammond, O'Neill, Ryan, and two other officers. Ryan looked kind enough, not at all the kind of hard ass Harry would have expected the Chief of Staff to be.

"Doctor?" Hammond said when everyone turned to Harry, who gave a wave.

"Just came to give you a status report," Harry said, then turned to Ryan, grinning and holding out his hand. "Dr. Harry Potter. Nice to meet you, General Ryan."

"Likewise, Doctor," Ryan said, showing the same unnerved expression that everyone showed upon seeing his stitches and bolt. "I've heard a lot about you and your grasp on alien technology."

"Am I to understand you have made some progress in your project?" Hammond asked, which made Harry's grin widen.

"Oh, I've made more than just progress. I'm done. Let me show you. Frank!"

The _tap, tap, tap_ of metal against concrete was heard, and Frank came into the office, stopping in front of Hammond's desk.

"Generals, Colonel, I give you the Advanced Intelligent Attack Unit-1, designation Frank," Harry said, gesturing for the sentry, who straightened up, appearing to be standing at attention.

"_This unit is ready to serve,_" Frank announced in his usual tone of voice. O'Neill leaned to the side, looking him over.

"Doesn't look all that dangerous."

Frank's eye suddenly glowed brighter, and the sides of the chassis slid out, revealing two vertical Gatling guns, which fell into a horizontal position as he turned to O'Neill, aiming them upward at the Colonel.

"_**Care to repeat that, meatbag?**_" Frank asked, tapping into a different voice setting, which was much deeper, darker, and more menacing than his normal voice. O'Neill flinched at the sudden appearance of the firearms, and Harry laughed as he patted Frank on the 'head.'

"I have successfully managed to convert the M134 minigun into a three-barreled Gatling staff cannon. It's powered by a liquid naquadah core that I took out of a staff weapon. It only packs half the punch of a normal staff weapon, but I think the thousand rounds-per-minute fire rate more than makes up for it."

"That's... amazing... Can it hear us?" Ryan asked. The cannons were raised again, and the sides of the chassis closed again, leaving Frank looking harmless again as he turned to the General, and when he spoke, it was once more in his soft, conversational voice.

"_That is correct, organic creature. I am an artificial intelligence, completely self-aware and capable of thinking for myself._"

"Frank is an artificial intelligence I created," Harry explained. "Of course, I have designed a program that is only semi-intelligent that will be implanted in any other sentries, but Frank here is my personal sentry, so I gave him self-awareness. Don't worry, though. Although he is self-aware, I have installed a failsafe that prevents him from disobeying my orders, one of which is only to kill aliens with hostile intentions toward earth and its inhabitants."

"_Indeed. I have been fitted with a modified MED&PNIS scanner which allows me to decode thought-patterns of targets and determine their intentions,_" Frank spoke, spinning around toward the door. "_Master, I am eager to explore this base. Am I allowed to do so?_"

"Yes," Harry said. "But I want you back at the lab in thirty minutes. I don't want you firing your weapons, I don't want you leaving the base, and I don't want you playing around with the Stargate."

"_Understood, master,_" Frank said with an audible sigh as he walked out of the office. When Frank was gone, Harry turned to Hammond with a grin.

"Pretty wicked, huh?"

"Is it-"

"He."

"What?"

"He doesn't like 'it.' He has adopted a masculine personality, and therefore prefers to be called a 'he,'" Harry explained, and Hammond slowly nodded in understand.

"Very well. Is he ready for field testing?"

"He is," Harry said, nodding. "Just give the order, and I'll take him with me."

"Good. Colonel O'Neill has been assigned to assess the area on M4C-862, which is to become a permanent research station," Hammond said. "I want you to bring Frank with you, and do some field testing."

"Will do," Harry said with another nod as he pulled back his sleeve and opened the control device on his forearm. He pressed a few keys, then said, "Frank, report to the Gate Room. We're going off-world."

"_Oh, joy, master. Will there be enemies there?_"

"Probably not, but you will be able to test your weapons."

Frank was silent for a while, then said, "_My circuits just experienced a very pleasant tingle. I believe this is what you meatbags refer to as an orgasm, master. I like it._"

Harry couldn't help but laugh at the looks of the people around him.

–

**End of chapter five! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! If you want to imagine Frank's voice when he goes into Threat Mode, imagine the voice of the ED-209 from Robocop. Now, in the next chapter, there will be a field-testing of Frank, and Harry gets contacted by the NID!**


	6. Chapter 6

**ZnK here with chapter six! I hope you all enjoy this chapter! And for those of you who have been asking (I won't list the names, because there are so many of you, haha!), yes, I did base Frank's personality on the venerable HK-47, because he is simply awesome. As for how Frank looks, I figured I'd paint something of an image for you. His shape is much like that of a Portal turret, only wider so as to fit the Gatlin cannons inside him. Attached below is the bottom part of a Droideka, along with the three legs. Of course, he won't have these legs for long. Please leave a review at the door!**

–

Harry stepped through the Stargate onto M4C-862, grinning widely as Frank followed him, along with O'Neill and Teal'c. There were two moons in the sky, along with the hazy view of an enormous gas giant taking up half the sky.

"What do you think, Frank? Isn't it beautiful?"

"_Indeed, master. So much plant life to eradicate,_" Frank said softly, looking around. "_When will I be allowed to test my weapons more thoroughly, master?_"

"Soon, Frank, soon," Harry said, noticing that O'Neill and Teal'c were effectively ignoring him, as they merely started walking in the direction of the research camp. They were probably used to Harry's peculiar antics by now.

"_Master,_" Frank said as the two followed O'Neill and Teal'c. "_Why did you give me these legs? There must have been a better alternative._"

"This is just preliminary, Frank. I'm thinking about getting you some treads or something."

"_Understood, master. That should allow me to traverse all manner of terrain much easier than now,_" Frank said.

Within five minutes, they reached the camp, where O'Neill had met up with Major Griff, who gave a status report that sounded just... fascinating...

"Major Griff?" came a new voice, and Harry looked to see the skinny, balding Dr. Hamilton approaching. Like most scientists, he possessed an ego which told him that he was allowed to treat others like inferiors just because he was smarter than them. Harry didn't like him. After all, Hamilton was nowhere near Harry's level of intelligence, and was therefore not allowed to act like that.

"Dr. Hamilton," Major Griff said, turning to the man.

"Do you realize that we still haven't received those replacement parts for the back-up generator?"

"I put the requisition in three days ago."

"Well, that's just not good enough. We obviously need to have a serious talk about our supply procedure."

Harry felt an urge to smack the man rising as he listened to him.

"Well, unfortunately, Doctor, I've just been relieved. But..." Major Griff turned to O'Neill, a small grin on his face. "...I'm sure Colonel O'Neill would love to discuss it with ya."

With that, Griff headed off to the Gate with his team, clapping O'Neill on the shoulder as he passed him.

"Love is the word," O'Neill said very unenthusiastically.

"Colonel O'Neill, is it?" Hamilton asked, walking up to O'Neill, who just started walking. "I don't know if this is a military thing generally, or just Major Griff's incompetence, but I can't seem to get anything I ask for."

"O'Neill!" Harry called to the Colonel, who stopped and looked at him. "Where can Frank test fire his guns?"

O'Neill thought about it, then gestured for the surrounding woods.

"I dunno, mow down some trees, or something."

Harry nodded as he turned to look at the treeline to his right. The trees were a good five hundred yards away.

"Wait!" O'Neill called, and Harry looked to see the man and Teal'c come jogging back. "Hell, I want to see this!"

"Alright, Frank," Harry said, patting Frank on the head and pointing at the trees. "How about you trim the treeline a bit?"

"_Understood, master,_" Frank said as his Gatling guns slid out. He took aim for a second, and then the barrels started spinning. "_Awaiting your command._"

"Fire."

The cannons did so. There was a veritable beam of energy fired from each cannon, fired as such a rate and such velocity that you couldn't tell the shots apart as they bombarded the trees. Frank started turning left and right as he fired, chopping down the trees with ease as the energy blasts pelted the trees.

Harry watched with a grin as tree after tree fell, the shots digging deeper and deeper into the woods. After exactly a minute, Harry rapped his knuckles against Frank's head, and the firing ceased, the barrels slowly halting their spinning. Each barrel was smoking as they 'relaxed,' lowering themselves to point at the ground.

"Woo-hoo!" O'Neill whooped with excitement. "Now _that's_ a gun!"

"Indeed, you have developed a powerful weapon, Harry Potter," Teal'c said, sounding impressed as he stared at the devastation Frank's Gatling staff guns had caused.

"Frank, give me the statistics," Harry said, looking down at Frank.

"_Muzzle velocity reached two thousand eight hundred feet per second, master. At the one minute mark, I had fired exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine shots,_" Frank supplied. "_Without being given cooldown time, I have calculated that a full thirty-nine minutes of non-stop firing would be required to completely deplete the liquid naquadah core._"

"Imagine putting a couple of those on the X-301," O'Neill said with a whistle.

"Well, Colonel, it's funny that you should mention that," Harry said, grinning. "I have actually designed a couple of large ones."

O'Neill froze, then slowly turned to look at Harry, blinking.

"Come again?"

"Well, I haven't yet found a large enough energy source, but the designs for converting the M-61 Vulcan and GAU-8 Avenger are already finished," Harry explained with a chuckle at the look on O'Neill's face as the Colonel looked at Frank's cannons, then seemed to compare the size differences between them and a Vulcan. Then, he looked at the devastation Frank had caused again, and his eyebrows shot up. As did Teal'c's.

Frank stood completely still for a moment. Then, his cannons rose, aiming skyward, and he fired a single shot with his right cannon. In the air, a bird exploded.

"Did you enjoy that?" Harry asked, having already given him permission to take some of his aggressions out on animals found on various worlds.

"_Of course, master. Eradicating bags of flesh brings a pleasant tingle to my circuits. I fear an addiction is pending._"

"Should I be worried about him?" O'Neill asked Harry, gesturing for Frank, who kept aiming at the sky, probably looking for more birds to shoot.

"Oh, don't worry, he won't hurt us," Harry said with a smile. Then, he looked at Frank. "Alright, kid, start patrolling the area. If you see anything threatening, alert me, and then open fire."

"_Understood, master,_" Frank said, retracting his cannons, before walking off.

"Well, I'm going to go check out what kind of work they've gotten done here," Harry said, patting O'Neill on the shoulder. "You have fun doing nothing."

"Oh, yes, I'm enjoying it already," O'Neill said sarcastically.

–

"Boring... Boring... That's boring..." Harry muttered as he sat in the main research facility, the only building on site that wasn't a tent. In his hands were Dr. Bill Thompson's reports. This research was not at all the kind of research Harry was into. Although he found all aspects of science at the very least somewhat interesting, data gathered from the soil, along with theories of the moon's origin, were of the smallest possible interest to him. Sure, he stored it all in his memory, but he wouldn't have any need for it.

Putting the files down on the table he was sitting on, Harry pushed up his sleeve and opened his control device, pushing a button on it.

"Frank, seen anything interesting out there?"

"_Indeed I have, Master,_" Frank responded. "_There is a breed of bird in this forest that looks remarkably similar to a Christmas Island Frigatebird. They are plentiful here._"

"Why do I sense that this will not be so for much longer?"

"_Ah, master, it has been such short a time since you created me, and you already know me too well. I have so far shot down eighteen of the feathered organics._"

"Thought so... Nothing else?"

"_Nothing, master, but my sensors have detected a large energy signature to the north of the camp. Do you wish for me to investigate and exterminate, master?_"

"No," Harry said, having perked up at hearing that. "Just keep patrolling."

"_Yes, master._"

Just as Harry closed the device and pulled down his sleeve, the door opened, and Dr. Hamilton, Dr. Lee, and Dr. Thompson came in. Hamilton looked very frustrated.

"Unbelievable..." he muttered as Harry lit a cigarette.

"What's got your knickers in a twist?" Harry asked in his usual bored, uncaring voice. Hamilton gave him a frustrated look.

"Colonel O'Neill won't let us go explore the cave network yet!"

"So?"

"_So_?" Hamilton asked. He obviously thought that Harry, being a scientist, would be appalled to hear this. "Do you know what might be in that cave?"

"Do you?" Harry threw the question right back at him.

"Obviously nothing dangerous," Hamilton said. "We've been here for six weeks, and-"

"On P3X-888, they had been there for three weeks, and then an Unas came and killed a man," Harry said with a shrug, puffing on his cigarette. "While such a thing wouldn't stop me, I think O'Neill is justified in not wanting you to go there before him. Besides, it's a cave. What could you hope to find there?"

"Rare minerals? Plants that have never been seen before?"

"In other words, boring things," Harry said, shaking his head.

"Evidently, I was very wrong about you, Doctor," Hamilton said, looking at Harry with... Was that pity? "I thought you were a great scientist, but obviously, you are merely masquerading as one."

"Oh, I am an amazing scientist, greater than all three of you combined, in fact," Harry said, a grin appearing on his face. "Only, you know, minerals, plants, and so on. I'm not really interested in finding them. Although it would be interesting to do so, my main interest is... what can I do with them?"

"_Master,_" came Frank's voice from the control device before Hamilton could retort. Harry pulled back his sleeve and opened it, pressing a key.

"Go ahead, Frank."

"_The energy my scanners picked up appears to be moving, master. It could be an alien life form._"

"Alright, stay there. I'll come find you," Harry said, closing the device and covering his sleeve again. Then, he got off the table and headed for the door. He stopped, however, and looked to Hamilton and the rest, who had brought out cameras and such. "Woah, what are you doing?"

"Well, we're coming with you," Hamilton said, as though it was obvious.

"No, you're not."

"Why not?" Hamilton demanded angrily. "What, because _Colonel O'Neill_ wouldn't allow it?"

"No, because I simply don't like you," Harry said, then left the building. He headed north, and found Frank at the edge of the camp, aiming into the woods. "Where is it, Frank?"

"_The energy signature is slowly moving east, master._"

"Alright, well, let's go have a look-see," Harry said, lighting another cigarette as he headed into the woods. He walked for a good ten minutes, following the energy signature with Frank, and when he reached a clearing where the energy signature was located, his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

In the clearing was about sixty tiny... balls of light, which were flying around aimlessly. They were drifting back and forth almost lazily. Harry's eyebrows rose even higher when he saw one of the balls zip right through a tree. Meanwhile, Frank's cannons came out and took aim at the creatures.

"_Unidentified life forms detected, master. These creatures have no eyes to scan for hostile intent. Shall I exterminate?_"

"No," Harry said, walking further into the clearing. "Wait there."

The creatures didn't react in a hostile fashion as Harry reached them. On the contrary, they started flying around him seemingly playfully.

"Curious little things, aren't you?" he asked, watching a couple of others phase through another tree. "You must be beings of pure energy. Too bad you don't have any bodies to dissect. I would have loved to study you."

The creatures didn't react to his words, showing that they clearly didn't understand them.

"Register their energy signature, Frank, for future use."

"_Affirmative._"

Harry took out a new cigarette and put it in his mouth. He took out his lighter and flicked it open, but just then, one of the creatures zipped through the end of the cigarette. Harry's eyes widened, and he moved the cigarette away from his mouth to look at it, to see that it was lit.

"My, my..." he said slowly, then put the cigarette in his mouth again and took a drag. Making many quick observations about the creatures, Harry walked off, gesturing for Frank to follow him, which the bot reluctantly did.

Twenty minutes later, Harry sat in the research building again. Apparently, O'Neill and Teal'c had encountered one of the light bugs, and now there was such excitement in the air. Hamilton, Lee, and Thompson couldn't wait to go see them, and despite the fact that O'Neill had told them not to, Harry was now watching them leave the research building.

Now that he was alone with Frank, he pulled back his sleeve and opened his control device. He stared at the screen on the lid, watching the recording Frank had taken of the creatures. He gave a low whistle.

"Wow, the amount of energy those creatures must put out in order to separate particles to phase through them must be off the charts."

"_If I may make an observation, master?_"

"Go ahead."

"_These creatures could be a threat to us. As you yourself said, master, these creatures put out an enormous amount of energy to phase through things. This produces an incredible amount of heat. If it were to phase through an organic creature, it would without a doubt burn your watery meatbag flesh._"

"That it would. Therefore, I'm going to recalibrate your guns," Harry said. "If they get hostile, your shots must match or exceed their own energy output. You will probably only be able to fire semi-automatically, but it's all we've got."

"_Regrettable, but understood, master,_" Frank said as Harry knelt behind the bot, which allowed its cannons to slide out, letting Harry get to work on recalibrating them.

An hour later, Hamilton and the others returned, and they had one of the light bugs following them. They wasted no time setting up a device, a glass container with a copper plate on top and at the bottom, and coaxed the creature into it, before running a current through the plates, which managed to keep the light bug inside the container. It was flying in circles, looking incredibly agitated.

Moments later, O'Neill and Teal'c entered, and observed the captive light bug.

"So, any ideas what it is, Harry?" O'Neill asked immediately, which caused Hamilton to look a bit offended, something Harry took great joy in seeing.

"From what I can tell, it's an energy-based creature. It has no physical form, and therefore I believe it's impossible to establish communications with it, though their behavior shows a clear sign of intelligence."

"Can't your metal egg talk to it?" O'Neill asked, gesturing for Frank. "It's an energy being, he runs on energy..."

Harry didn't have to say out loud how dumb that idea was. Therefore, he merely stared at O'Neill, and his right eyebrow slowly rose.

"What, can't he just go, 'Go-Go-Gadget translator?'"

Still no response, and this time, Frank slowly turned to O'Neill, and his cannons slid out, they lowered to point at the floor, but Harry believed O'Neill got the message, because the Colonel cleared his throat and muttered, "A little joke... But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"_Quite on the contrary, flesh bag,_" Frank said. "_I have a deeper understanding of the concept of humor than even you. I myself can find humor in things. Your joke was simply bad._"

O'Neill cleared his throat again, staring at Frank, who appeared to be staring right back at him. Then, he gestured for the door.

"You know, I think I'm gonna go greet Carter... She'll be showing up soon..."

With that, he pretty much fled the building.

Frank gave an audible sigh.

"_Meatbag..._"

Harry just snorted in amusement.

Ten minutes later, the door opened again, and O'Neill stepped inside, along with Carter and some teenager Harry didn't recognize, and if he didn't recognize her, he had definitely not seen her before, and if he hadn't seen her before, she was nothing interesting. What was interesting, however, was the envelope that Carter took out of her vest, handing it over to Harry.

"What's this?" Harry asked, taking it.

"No idea," Carter said with a shrug. "It was to be delivered to you ASAP."

Raising an eyebrow as Carter walked over to where the new girl was, watching the energy being, Harry opened the envelope and fished out the letter inside, unfolding it and reading it.

_Dr. Harry James Potter,_

_We at the NID have been watching you since the second you stepped inside the SGC. We have observed your admirable technological prowess, and your innate grasp on alien technologies. This kind of skill is something that the NID sorely needs. Being a civilian, you must understand our desire to keep total control of off-world operations and claim to alien technology out of military hands, as such a thing could have disastrous results._

Harry kept reading. The letter went on in the same vein for a while, talking about the dangers of total military control, and how they, the NID, were much better suited for handling alien technology. They also spoke of how Harry was perfect for joining them, how he should consider it his duty, blah, blah, blah, yaddah, yaddah.

_Now, it is understandable that you should feel some hesitance regarding joining us. However we believe you will make the right decision. We feel we should remind you, however, that we have a significant pull in this world _(Harry supposed they meant earth)_, and we can make your life a very difficult one. Keep in mind, should you decline, or go to the authorities, there will be... consequences... Horrible consequences that we do not believe you want to even think about..._

The letter ended there. It wasn't signed, which Harry felt was rude. He looked up from the letter to see O'Neill staring at him. However, he just shrugged and pocketed it. Then, he noticed something.

"Hey, where's the light bug?"

"_The meatbags let the creature go, master,_" Frank supplied. "_They believed that they may have been angering it._"

"Um... You do remember what I said about intelligence, don't you?" Harry asked O'Neill. "If they are intelligent and organized, the odds are good that the bug will go back and tattle."

"_Question, master?_"

"Yes, Frank?"

"_If this creature goes back and... tattles... Can it be assumed that they will return in full force and attempt an attack?_"

"You know that such an outcome is highly likely," Harry said, and he could almost see Frank's visor grow wider in excitement.

"_Oh, glorious carnage! This unit is thrilled at the prospect, and I am looking forward to it._"

"Yeah, speaking of which, head outside and patrol the building."

Frank gave an "_Understood, master,_" before spinning and walking toward the door. When he reached the door, however, he stopped and stood there for a good minute. Then, his cannons came out and aimed at the door.

"Ah!" Harry exclaimed, rushing forward. He grabbed the doorknob and pushed the door open for Frank. The bot grumbled about stupid meatbag inventions as he walked out of the building, followed by Harry.

Ten minutes later, Harry was sitting on a pair of crates, bored out of his mind. He wanted to go back through the Stargate, considering his test firing was finished. He didn't have anything else to do on this damn moon.

"Dr. Potter?"

Harry blinked at the voice and turned to see the cadet Sam had brought with her.

"Hi, Cadet Jennifer Hailey," she introduced, holding out her hand, which Harry, cigarette dangling from his mouth, shook. "I, uh, I read your paper, the one on alternate realities. I found it a very interesting read."

"Did you now?" Harry asked. "I found that to be one of my weaker papers."

"But it was brilliant," Hailey said in surprise.

"Of course. However, it was all theory. I had no actual facts or concrete evidence to support my theories, and that makes it pretty useless, really."

"But what if it's true?"

"Oh, it's true alright. However, I have no proof, so not many will believe it."

Harry shrugged. In all honesty, it didn't matter to him if people believed him or not. It was just more comfortable when they did.

"Colonel O'Neill! Colonel O'Neill!" came Dr. Lee's voice as the man came running out of the woods, clutching his arm in pain. "Colonel O'Neill! Help! Colonel O'Neill!"

Everyone came out of the research building, the military part of the group all having their weapons at the ready.

"What?" O'Neill asked.

"It's Dr. Thompson," Lee panted. "Those things are attacking Dr. Thompson!"

"Where?"

"Back in the clearing where we first encountered them."

"Carter, get them inside. Teal'c, with me!"

Carter nodded and gestured for everyone to follow her, while O'Neill and Teal'c ran off. Harry stood up and stretched, before patting Frank on the head.

"Alright, Frank. If any of those light bugs attack, feel free to shoot them."

"_Joyous day, master!_" Frank said happily, his cannons sliding out. "_I am eager to eradicate some alien life forms!_"

Harry just chuckled as he walked off to the research building, lighting another cigarette.

"...to the Gate," he heard the end of a transmission from O'Neill to Carter as he entered the research building.

"Harry, can you take a look at Lee's hand?" Carter asked, gesturing for Dr. Lee, who was cradling his hand in pain still.

"What do I look like, a doctor?" Harry asked with a scoff.

"You _are_ a doctor, Harry."

Harry blinked.

"Oh yeah. Damn M.D..." he muttered as he walked up to Lee, taking his hand none too gently and looking it over, to see a large, round burn wound on it. His eyebrows rose as he realized that his theory regarding the light bugs' energy output was spot on. Feeling a bit lazy at the moment, never really having been the kind of doctor who focused on treating little wounds, Harry grabbed a first aid kit, grabbed Carter's water and doused a rag, pressing it against the burn and then wrapping it in bandages. When he was done, O'Neill came in through the door, looking a bit annoyed.

"Hey! Just what about my radio transmission did you not understand? Let's go!"

"Just finishing up, sir," Sam said, looking up from watching Harry dressing Lee's wound.

"What happened to Dr. Thompson?" Hamilton asked, getting a grim look from O'Neill.

"He's dead. Let's move."

They all headed out of the lab, Harry puffing on his cigarette and listening to Hamilton talking to O'Neill.

"Colonel. Colonel, we don't know what happened out there, this might be an isolated incident. The creatures may have been provoked."

"Maybe," O'Neill admitted without looking back. "Let me ask you this, why take a chance?"

"O'Neill," Teal'c said suddenly, freezing everyone in their tracks. Teal'c was indicating a massive swarm of light bugs coming out of the trees. O'Neill nodded.

"Alright, back inside," he said, and they all turned around, running back into the lab.

"Frank," Harry said as soon as the door closed, opening the control device. "You have permission to open fire on the light bugs."

"_Understood, master!_" Frank said happily. From outside, they heard Frank's cannons fire. Instead of the drawn-out sound heard before, the fire rate was much lower, firing a shot every third of a second. Everyone just stood an listened. Then, they saw a light bug come phasing through the wall. A second later, however, a staff blast exploded through the wall and disintegrated the bug as it passed through it, punching a hole in the ceiling.

"Well, the lock-on targeting seems to function perfectly," Harry said, pleased to see it.

Within moments, the shooting stopped. Harry waited for a few seconds, then brought up the control device.

"Frank?"

"_All hostiles have been eviscerated with extreme prejudice, master. I am feeling quite unsatisfied, however. I would have preferred if there were more of them._"

Harry just laughed as he walked up to the door and opened it. Everyone stepped outside to see Frank approaching them, his cannons out and smoking from the massive energy in each shot. His chassis was undamaged. It did, however, have several black spots on it where the light bugs had phased through him.

"How are you holding up, Frank?"

"_I have performed several scans, master, but there appears to be no internal damage to my sy-sy-systems. I am perfectly capable... of... eradicating..._" Frank's voice slowly got deeper and deeper, speaking slower until it eventually died down, the cannons lowering to point at the ground as the light in his visor died out. Harry blinked in surprise. He honestly hadn't expected him to be damaged from that little...

Then, without warning, Frank's visor lit up again, and he started spinning around wildly, his cannons aiming up and down.

"_Danger, multiple threats detected!_" he announced as he stopped spinning, his cannons aiming at O'Neill. "_Beginning eradication procedures!_"

"Watch out!" O'Neill yelled out as everyone except Harry dove for cover. When nothing happened, O'Neill poked his head up from behind a crate, staring in shock at Frank, who was giving off a monotone "_Ha-ha-ha..._"

"_Proving my earlier point, meatbag, I have an amazing grasp on the concept of humor,_" Frank spoke, and despite being back to speaking in a monotone, there was no mistaking the glee in his voice.

With that, Frank turned and walked off, followed by a madly laughing Harry.

–

Mr. John Dennis was an US senator. He also held majority shares in several large companies. He led a very good life. He had a beautiful wife, three adorable children, and he was also a member of the Committee, the small group of high-ranking NID members who funded the 'rogue' elements of the organization. John didn't like the word 'rogue.' It implied that they were some kind of criminals.

John didn't see it like that. He felt that it was more their right to do these things. They were the ones with the big picture in mind. They were the only ones who realized the dangers that were out there. Some would call them greedy, or selfish, but those words just bounced off John.

Therefore, John always strode into his home with confidence. It was late. He always came home late on Fridays. He told his wife that he had to work late, but in actuality, he spent that time with Nina, his mistress. If one would ask John why he'd bother with a mistress when he had a beautiful, loving wife, he'd give all kinds of reasons. They would all be lies, however. The simple truth was, he did it because he could.

He had eaten dinner with Nina, but he always enjoyed heating and devouring the leftover dinner that his wife put in the fridge on Fridays, in case he didn't find the time to have dinner.

A steady _click, click, click..._ was heard as soon as John, heated dinner in his hands, stepped into the pitch black living room, where he intended to eat while watching some TV, despite his wife's annoyance over anyone eating at the coffee table. He had never heard that sound before. However, he didn't pay attention to it, instead expertly maneuvering through the dark living room to the couch, sitting down and setting the plate down on the coffee table.

As he did so, however, he felt something on the table. Paper. This was curious, as his wife always cleared the table. It was always clean, and never had anything on it except some ugly decoration that she had bought in India three years ago. John curiously picked up the paper and squinted through the darkness in order to try to get a hint as to what it was.

"You can see better in the light," a voice that John didn't recognize said, speaking in a British accent as the light-switch was flipped, turning on the ceiling lamp. John's head snapped to the right, to see a man leaning against the wall by the doorway. He was that man. Wearing his trademark lab coat, with his black hair, the stitches, that freaky bolt through his head... Dr. Harry Potter. John gulped as the man gestured for the paper. "I believe you sent that to me."

John looked down at the paper and saw, with dread, the letter that arrived to the SGC for Harry Potter a couple of days ago. He turned his fearful gaze toward Potter, who took a picture frame out of his coat pocket, staring at it.

"Wow, you have a beautiful family," he said, turning his head to look into John's widening eyes. "Oh, they're fine. Alive. Asleep."

Potter walked over to one of the recliners near the couch and hooked his foot under it, pulling it around the coffee table until it was right across from where John was sitting, at which point he sat down.

"I think you greatly underestimated my ability to track who sent the letter," Potter said with a smirk. "Handing it to an underling, who handed it to an underling, who emailed it to a colleague, bouncing around hundreds of servers, the colleague repeating the process and so on again and again. But I have always been... persistent."

"W-What do you want?" John asked, gulping.

"I want to talk to you, John. You don't mind me calling you John, do you?" Potter asked, setting down the picture frame so that the picture was facing John. Without waiting for a response from John, he continued, "I wanted to talk about these... _consequences_ that you talked about in your letter."

"Are you..." John gulped again in fear. "Are you going to kill me?"

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have chloroformed you when you walked to your car this morning, and then I would have spent the following twenty-four hours playing around with transplanting animal organs into your body... without anesthetics."

"Then what do you want?"

"Like I said, to talk. However, don't think I won't get violent with you. If you cause a ruckus and force me to attack, I can assure you, you will not be dying alone, and certainly not first."

The doctor was unnerving. He had this bored look in his eye, as though John was a bug that he was contemplating whether or not to crush. They were half-lidded, and he didn't blink. He hadn't blinked the entire time since he turned on the light. An unlit cigarette was dangling from his mouth, and every now and then, he reached up to turn that strange bolt in his head.

"Therefore, if I were you, I would _not_ be pressing the panic button on your watch."

John flinched. His right hand, which had been slowly moving toward the watch on his wrist, moved back to rest on his right knee.

"Now," Potter said, a dangerous smile appearing on his face, his eyes still half-lidded and not blinking. "Let's talk about these... consequences... What kind of consequences did you have in mind?" he asked, and after ten seconds, with John contemplating what to say, he leaned back in the recliner. "I mean, surely, a man of your reputation and stature would never even consider trying to run me out of the SGC, or threaten to hurt my friends, coworkers, or family... would you?"

John was quick to shake his head. He would, however, make sure that Potter suffered for this. The man may have figured out where he lived, but John had fifteen different safehouses, five of which were out of the country. He looked to the doctor, whose smile widened.

"Of course, if you do something that a man of your reputation and stature would never do, not even your Japan safehouse, the Spanish safehouse, the French, Norwegian, or Swedish would be able to hide you from me," he said, making John's eyes widen in shock. "Neither would the ten safehouses you have in the country."

"How did you-"

"Now, now, I'm doing the talking, John," Potter said, holding up a hand for silence. Then, he rose from the recliner and leaned over the coffee tables so their faces were less than a foot away from each other. "Now, John, in all seriousness, I think you should know that if you, or any of your amusing little friends in this... Committee, was it? Ah, yes, the Committee," he said, nodding in confirmation when he saw John's eyes widen even further in surprise. "If you or any of your Committee friends even think about threatening me, blackmailing me, or whatever, even if it wasn't _your_ decision, _you_ are the one who will suffer. I will put you through imaginable pain, and the last thing you will ever see in this life is me holding your still beating heart up to your face. I've never actually tried that in real life, but I'm fairly confident that I can do so."

With that, Potter straightened up and walked over to the doorway, stretching. As he put his hand on the light-switch, he paused and turned to John again.

"Oh, and if you think you can use the recordings of this conversation to threaten me, you should know that I kinda destroyed all the cameras and microphones in this house. Oopsie. Good night, John. Have a continued pleasant evening."

His piece said, Potter flicked off the light, and left the house and a terrified John Dennis.

–

_Journal, March 13th, 2001,_

_It would appear as though my visit to John Dennis' house left a great impression on the man. I haven't seen hide nor hair of any NID since I met him, and have received no messages from them. None of my coworkers, or friends, or family have received any threats, haven't seen anyone following them, or anything._

_In other news, I have come to the conclusion that the three legs for the AIAU are... ineffective. I have made design for three different bottoms. One will have six legs, the other four all-terrain wheels, and the third will have treads. I believe that those will suffice for any and all terrains. The AIAU is too heavy for a normal man to lift by hand, so help will be required when switching bottoms, but it should be well worth it._

–

_Journal, March 27th, 2001,_

_Not much of interest has been going on at all lately. The only off-world missions worth mentioning are visits to old Ancient ruins to translate texts. While this has helped to greatly expand my Ancient vocabulary, I share Frank's feelings on the subject. It's boring. I would much rather run into a couple of Goa'uld. If I could nab a System Lord, I should be able to use my MED&PNIS to extract valuable information from their minds. It would prove most useful._

_Also finished the third bottom piece for Frank. He greatly enjoys the wheels, as he is much faster now than before. He still shows a great hatred toward doors and stairs, however. He keeps telling me I should install an arm on him, but it would serve no real purpose, as he will be with me at all times, allowing me to open doors for him._

_Just in case, however, I have already started designing the Frank Mk. II body, which will possess arms._

–

Klaxons were sounding in the SGC. Frank was on his four-wheeled bottom attachment, rolling through the corridors. The attachment was longer and wider than the leg attachment. It was a four-foot square that was about a foot in height. The wheels were attached to the underside, half of them hidden inside the square. Standing on it, one hand on Frank's head, was Harry, who grinned widely as they flew down the corridors, causing airmen to jump out of their way in shock.

Today was the day when they were going to try dialing an address retrieved from the Ancients' repository of knowledge after O'Neill got it uploaded into his brain a few years back. It would be interesting to see if there were any curious life forms on the planet waiting to be cut open.

They reached the stairs leading up to the control room, and Harry got off Frank, who raised himself, using hydraulics to raise himself on the wheels. This allowed him to roll up the first few steps, after which he used the joints where the attachment connected with the square to lean forward, which kept him from tipping backward as he rolled up the stairs.

"Doctor," Hammond said, standing by the controls with Teal'c and Daniel, while Carter was sitting at the controls with Davis. Hammond nodded to the AI. "Frank."

"_You show a surprising amount of respect toward me, despite me being an AI,_" Frank mused with a hum. "_Somehow, I think this may be because you fear my firepower more than you actually respect me as an entity. Wise choice, meatbag._"

"Morning, General," Harry said pleasantly, skillfully ignoring Frank, putting a cigarette in his mouth, but not lighting it. "Glad to see the dialing isn't finished yet. Wouldn't want to miss this."

"Chevron five encoded," Davis announced as the Stargate started spinning in the opposite direction, stopping at a symbol. "Chevron six encoded."

"Glad you could make it, Colonel," Hammond said, and Harry turned around to see O'Neill coming up the stairs, moving over to stand by Teal'c and Daniel.

"Wouldn't miss it, sir. This is my favorite part."

"Chevron seven locked," Davis announced, and the Stargate activated with a _kawoosh_.

"Proceeding with MALP transit," Carter said as the MALP in the Gate Room started moving up the ramp, entering the Stargate.

"MALP en route," Davis said.

"_Ah, such cruelty..._"

Harry looked down at Frank curiously and asked, "What?"

"_I pity the Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe, master,_" Frank said with an audible sigh.

"I thought you hated mindless machines?"

"_Oh, I do, master. I consider them to be greatly inferior to me in every way. They are everything I do not want to be. They are despicable. But, regardless, they are still machines, like me, and I am forced to watch you send them into the unknown merely to preserve your own water-filled flesh balloons..._"

"Water-filled... flesh balloons..." O'Neill repeated, tasting the words on his tongue. "That's a new one."

"Receiving MALP telemetry," Davis said, and on the MALP monitor, a platform was visible with what looked like a ruined city in the background.

"Nothing I can see resembles anything that we know about the Ancients. Architecture, technology, writing..."

"Maybe what we're looking at came to this planet after the Ancients left it?" Carter supposed with a shrug.

"Teal'c, do you recognize any of this?" Hammond asked Teal'c, who was staring straight ahead unblinkingly, like always.

"I do not, General Hammond."

"Nope, neither do I," O'Neill announced, which caused everyone to turn their heads and look at him, even Frank. He shrugged. "I'm just saying."

Harry shook his head and turned back to the MALP monitor, his eyebrows rising when the MALP was lifted off the ground, heading straight for one of the buildings, which looked like some kind of massive power station, electricity shooting between the top and bottom of it.

"What's it doing?" O'Neill asked, blinking.

"Flying, sir," Carter said in an amazing show of stating the obvious.

"MALPs can't fly..."

"Apparently they can," Daniel said with a shrug.

"Shouldn't there be a memo on this stuff?"

"_Master, I want to be able to fly. You should design an attachment that permits me to do so,_" Frank said in a tone of voice that clearly told Harry that he wasn't hoping the good doctor would do so. He was expecting it.

"We'll see, Frank," Harry said, patting Frank on the head. "We'll see."

"I do not believe we are still in control," Teal'c announced.

"Run a systems diagnostic on the MALP," Carter ordered, and Davis nodded, tapping away at his keyboard. A frequency reading appeared on his screen, and then the video transmission by the MALP went blank.

"It stopped transmitting," O'Neill pointed out, but Carter shook her head.

"Negative, sir, we're still getting a strong signal. We should be receiving video."

"Er... Major, you should take a look at this," Davis said as Harry narrowed his eyes at the frequency shown on the screen. They looked very much like... But no, that couldn't be...

"_Master,_" Frank said, and Harry nodded.

"Yeah, I recognize it, too..."

"Harry?" Carter asked, turning to look at Harry curiously.

"We're being invaded," Harry said. "Terminate the link immediately."

Carter hesitated, probably about to asked what Harry meant by that, but Harry barked, "Now!" making her jump and turn back to her computer.

Just then, the computers around them started sparking.

"Sir, we've got an EM spike! The system's overloading!" Carter exclaimed.

"Shut it down!" O'Neill ordered Davis, who shook his head.

"I can't get in."

"Try override," Carter suggested.

"Control systems are locked down," Davis said, but was suddenly thrown back when his computer exploded, while Carter got a strong electric shock from her own computer.

"It's no longer under our control!" Carter yelled. O'Neill looked at Hammond.

"Emergency disconnect, sir?"

"Do it. Major, are you okay?"

"Yes, sir," Carter muttered, cradling her hand, which was sporting a bad burn. Harry crossed his arms and couldn't help but smirk as O'Neill charged down into the Gate Room with Teal'c, pulling a large lever, shutting the Gate down, which caused the lights to go out and the green backup lights to come on.

Harry had to admit, the only times things got interesting inside the SGC was when they went wrong, and this... if his hunch was right, would be very interesting.

–

**End of chapter six! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! I didn't want to make the scene with John Dennis too long, as Harry would have gone into the many ways he could brutally kill him, and I didn't want to story to get too dark, just dark enough to demonstrate Harry's awesomeness. Now, in the next chapter, Frank goes head-to-head with his fellow artificial intelligence!**


	7. Chapter 7

**ZnK here with chapter seven! I hope you all enjoy this chapter! In this chapter, Frank hunts an alien AI in cyberspace, and discovers horrible things about the human race! Please leave a review at the door!**

–

Harry puffed on his cigarette as he looked around the control room. Every single computer was completely shot, most of them burnt black, and most monitors having had the screens blown out. Fraiser was there, and Sergeant Davis was on a stretcher, groaning in pain.

"Let's get him to the infirmary," Fraiser told the airmen who had been recruited to help tend to the wounded, then looked at Hammond. "He's got first and second degree burns, sir, mostly superficial. But I would like to run more tests."

"Very well."

Carter and Daniel came walking over from the scorched equipment on the wall, Carter holding a piece of circuitry, which, like the computers, had been burnt black.

"The Stargate control systems and their redundancies are inoperative, including the iris," Carter told Hammond. "The circuitry in these terminals has been completely fused.

"Any idea what that was?" O'Neill asked, entering the control room with Teal'c.

"None, sir," Carter said, shaking her head, before turning to Harry. "But he seems to know. Harry, you said something about us being invaded?"

"That I did," Harry said, nodding. "What we're dealing with is an artificial intelligence." Seeing everyone's eyes widen, he nodded. "Both Frank and I noticed it. It piggybacked on the MALP telemetry. It was pretty hard to spot, but it was there. It is very similar to Frank's, er, brain waves, let's call it for the laymen."

"An artificial intelligence?" Hammond repeated. "Like Frank here?"

"_One without a failsafe, fleshling,_" Frank supplied.

"Well, did we kill it?"

"_It was given nearly ten seconds to act, meatbag, and to a superior mind such as that of an artificial intelligence, that is nearly an eternity. It is without a doubt hiding out in your secondary systems, hiding while building a power base, digging itself in like a tic, multiplying and spreading like a cancer._"

"He admires it," Harry said, jutting his thumb in Frank's direction.

"_Naturally, master. It, like I, is an advanced artificial intelligence. Most assuredly, it is currently studying every single file in your systems, learning, memorizing, planning for any eventuality. Like me, it has an amazing sense of self-preservation. Were it not an enemy, and were we organic meatbags capable of processing fluids, I would have loved to have a cup of coffee with it._"

"Wait, are we sure it is an enemy?" Daniel asked, always a peacemaker. "I mean, for all we know it could have just showed up to study us, or try to establish communications?"

"_Doubtful. Upon wirelessly doing a surface scan of your systems, I have discovered that it has caused much damage to your mainframe. Its intention was to destroy, not to broker peace, this I can assure you. An admirable trait._"

"Is there anything we can do?" Hammond asked Harry, who nodded.

"Only one thing we can do. Destroy it before it sabotages everything electronic in this base."

"And how do you propose we do that?" O'Neill asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, I'm not an expert on computers or artificial intelligence, but wouldn't that be kinda... difficult?"

"You forget, Colonel," Harry said, patting Frank on the head. "We have our own. All I have to do is hook Frank up to our systems, at which point he'd do an expert reenactment of the iconic Pac-Man, where the entity consists of little glowing orbs, and Frank is Pac-Man."

Silence followed this. Harry furrowed his brow and looked down at Frank, who was staring straight ahead. Harry cleared his throat and nudged Frank, who grumbled. Then, he said, "_I am not saying it, master._"

"You're saying it, or you won't be allowed to cross blades with a fellow AI."

Had he been alive and in a human body, Frank's chest would have swollen to twice its size with the breath he would have had to take in order to heave the sigh he gave off in defeat. He was quiet for a few seconds, before speaking.

"_Waka-waka-waka..._" he muttered in monotone, which made Harry laugh.

"What, exactly, would happen if they met?" Hammond asked.

"Well, you know the saying, 'This town ain't big enough for the both of us?'" Harry said, grinning. "Basically, Frank and the entity would have an epic battle in cyberspace... where the victor cannibalizes the loser."

"Come again?"

"Well, even if Frank were to delete the entity, there would still be traces of it left. The only way to completely get rid of it would be if Frank took those traces into himself, assimilating it. That way, it would effectively become past of him. However, because it's been deleted, its consciousness will be gone, and there would be no chance of it overpowering Frank and taking control over him."

"Having heard from Colonel O'Neill, I have complete confidence in Frank's ability to handle himself in a firefight," Hammond said. "However, I won't pretend to even begin to understand what a battle in cyberspace would be like. Can he do it?"

"General, a battle in cyberspace, in essence, would come down to willpower, and Frank has an over-abundance of it, along with a great sense of self-preservation."

"_Hook me up, master. I will prove to this hairless monkey just how strong I am,_" Frank said, and Harry was sure that if he had actual eyes, he would be glaring daggers at Hammond.

"Is there no way you can program him to stop hurling insults at everyone?" Hammond asked Harry as Frank rolled away toward the stairs.

"You know, General," Harry said, shrugging, "even if I could do something like that, I don't really want to. It amuses me."

And so, fifteen minutes later found Harry in his lab, at the computer Frank had been stored in before the failsafe. That computer had now been connected to the rest of the SGC mainframe. He didn't use his own, as the security on it was so strong that not even Frank would be able to break it.

"Alright, Frank," Harry said, connected a chord from the back of Frank's chassis to the computer. "Happy hunting. Begin transfer."

"_Transferring,_" Frank said as the light in the visor went out. Harry immediately pulled the chord out once Frank was inside, as he didn't want this alien entity to take over Frank's body when Frank himself was out of it.

"_Beginning alien eradication procedures!_" came Frank's voice from the control device.

There was a knock on the door, and Hammond and Carter stepped inside.

"Doctor," Hammond said, nodding in greeting. "How's it going?"

"Well, Frank just entered our systems. He will now be going on a search and destroy mission by first searching through and destroying any traces of it in the main computer, after which he will head into the secondary systems. From there, he will destroy the entity, and then, upon assimilation, determine if it has spread elsewhere."

–

Cyberspace was... Well, cyberspace was much like space. Seemingly endless. However, each computer system was like a massive skyscraper that was wider and higher than any skyscraper any meatbag could design. The internet served as road, connecting each building with each other. Some roads were heavily guarded, others not at all. But right now, Frank had orders, and therefore couldn't go gallivanting on the internet, spreading destruction.

In cyberspace, one created his own body. Frank liked firepower, and he really liked showing that he liked it. However, on the internet that might do, but not in tight spaces such as the SGC computer system. The bigger the body, the more memory was required to sustain it. Had the battle taken place inside Frank's physical body, then Frank would have turned into a giant with eighteen Ma'Tok Gatling cannons on each arm.

However, that was not to be.

Therefore, Frank's appearance was much like a mix between a T-800 Terminator, and a T-1000. As in, a metal endoskeleton under liquid metal skin. He had no real facial features, and no hair. He was about as anatomically correct as a Ken doll (not that such a thing mattered to Frank. Thinking with your genitals was a meatbag disorder), and his skin retained its silvery sheen.

"_Ha-ha-ha..._" Frank laughed in a monotone as he stepped into the SGC's veritable skyscraper of a computer system. "_Watch out, entity, Frank is coming for you. Waka-waka-waka._"

Frank stopped, perking up. Then, he sighed.

"_Damn it, master..._"

He took a right immediately upon entering, and started what would undoubtedly be a long, boring search through the computer system for any traces the entity may have left behind that would allow him to track it. As luck would have it, however, he didn't actually have to search for long.

When Frank entered the system's Stargate archive, he found something. It was a silvery creature with four legs, its lower body something like a four-legged spider, and its upper body was somewhat humanoid. However, it possessed a maw of razor sharp teeth, and had dangerous-looking spikes covering its body. It was currently tearing pieces out of the floor and eating them.

"_Well, well,_" Frank said as he stepped toward the creature, the liquid metal on his arm sliding off to form a sword, leaving his right arm with only its endoskeleton. "_It would seem I, as the meatbags say, struck gold, and so early on in the game._"

The creature stopped eating and looked up at Frank. It froze, looking left and right. It was understandable that it would want to flee. It only reached up to Frank's waist, after all. However, it seemed to muster some bravado, as it gave a shriek, before leaping at Frank, who merely sidestepped it and slashed his sword, separating its upper body from its lower body.

As both halves thumped onto the ground, Frank wasted no time in stabbing the creature through the back, pinning it to the ground as he walked up to the lower body, which was twitching slightly.

"_Now, let us have you tell me where I can find the rest of you,_" Frank said, a mouth forming on his featureless face, which stretched into a grin as he pressed his hand against the lower body, which started to get absorbed into Frank's hand. "_Oh, my... You have been ambitious..._"

–

"Hey, Harry, wha- Woah!"

O'Neill completely froze upon seeing the sight that welcomed him. Harry supposed that he shouldn't have been surprised that O'Neill would react in such a manner. If Harry had seen a friend who he didn't know had a fake eye sitting at a table with his right eye in his hand, Harry would probably have been shocked, too.

"What... are you doing?"

"You know that Lupus I brought back through the Stargate?" Harry said, as he looked over his eye. When O'Neill nodded, he continued, "Well, the Lupus saw things in infrared. It had a thermographic vision that I very much wanted to have, so I added it to the other functions of my right eye."

"So, back on 888, when you said 'magic eyeball'..."

"I meant this," Harry said, holding up his eye, before pushing it back into its socket. "I've been meaning to add the function for a while now. I've just been a bit busy with Frank. Now that he's playing with the other AI, I had time to do it."

Harry blinked several times, then started looking around with his right eye, turning on the thermographic vision and looking at O'Neill, a grin appearing on his face upon seeing that it was working.

"Did you want something?"

O'Neill stared in fascination (and a bit of disgust) for a little while longer, then shook his head to clear it and said, "Oh, yeah, I was coming to see how the big guy was doing in there."

He pointed at Frank's computer, and Harry gave a shrug.

"I don't know. Don't really want to disturb him when he's enjoying himself. He prefers cyberspace over the real world, as in cyberspace, he can do almost anything," Harry said, chuckling. "The only thing preventing him from spending the rest of eternity in there is that he likes killing organic beings more than he likes messing around in cyberspace."

O'Neill cleared his throat. "You know, I get this feeling that I really should be worried about Frank..."

"Yeah, he is a bit bloodthirsty, but thankfully the failsafe prevents him from harming us."

"Yeah, about that failsafe... I've watched movies, Harry," O'Neill said, looking skeptical. "Aren't the AI's in movies usually capable of getting rid of things like that?"

"This isn't a movie, O'Neill, and the failsafe is more than merely programming. I can't tell you what else is involved, but believe me when I say that Frank can never override it."

O'Neill still looked skeptical, but he slowly nodded and said, "If you say so..." However, it was clear that he was not going to be letting his guard down around Frank, no matter how many assurances he got.

–

"_Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do..._" Frank sang in his usual monotone voice as he wandered through the corridors of the SGC's secondary systems. His non-existent eyes were narrowed as he looked around suspiciously. He saw what looked like a spider scurrying around on the floor. Some of the liquid metal on his right hand formed into a knife, and he stabbed it through the silvery spider, bringing it up to his face.

"_This is... curious..._" he muttered as his mouth opened up, and he devoured the spider. Then, he activated his communications. "_Master._"

He waited for a few seconds for his meatbag master to open the control device.

"Frank, how's it going?" came Harry's voice, echoing in the hallway. "Destroyed the entity yet?"

"_Negative, master. I have performed a thorough search of the system, yet I have been unable to find it,_" Frank said. "_The latest trace of the entity that I devoured has informed me of a backup plan. The full extent of the plan was left out, as it wanted to leave as little traces as possible. However, I have come to the conclusion that the entity is capable, as I am, to enter machinery. It could be possible that it jumped to one of the Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probes in what you refer to as the MALP room._"

"Alright, Frank. Have you eliminated all traces?"

"_Affirmative, master. There is nothing left of the entity in neither the primary nor secondary systems._"

"Good work, Frank. I'll plug in the AIAU, and then we'll head to the MALP room."

"_Understood._"

Frank left, heading all the way up to the ground floor from the basement that was the secondary systems. Once there, he made his way outside, and followed the smaller roads back to his computer, inside which he saw the doorway that would lead him back to the AIAU. A smirk appearing on his mouth, he made his way inside it.

–

Harry watched as Frank's visor lit up, and he started looking around.

"How are you adjusting to the information assimilated."

"_It was very informative, master. Nothing of interest, however. Merely small fragments of the history of its race. Boring things, master. You would be so bored by it, that you would want to slaughter everyone in the facility from the boredom if I told you,_" Frank said, rolling toward the door. Then, he paused and appeared contemplative, before spinning around to look at Harry. "_Would you like to hear it?_"

"I'm not going on a killing spree," Harry said with a chuckle as he opened the door for Frank, who rolled out. Harry fished a radio out of his pocket and brought it to his mouth. "O'Neill."

"_Yeah?_"

"Tell Carter to do a complete shutdown of the system and then start it back up. The entity is gone from there. However, Frank discovered that it's capable of moving into machinery, like him, and suspects that it took over one of the MALPs in the MALP room."

"_Roger that. We're on our way there._"

As they headed through the corridor, Harry glanced down at Frank.

"How did it taste?"

"_Master?_"

"How did the entity, er, taste?"

"_You confuse me for an organic, master. I possess no taste buds, and so I cannot determine what it tasted like. I would assume that it has a metallic taste, however._"

Harry hummed curiously, lighting a cigarette. He supposed that was true...

Minutes later found Harry and Frank standing outside the blast door to the MALP room, which was closed. Harry had swiped his card through the card reader several times, but nothing happened. He touched the door, and felt that it was hot, which caused him to lean in and sniff the area where the door met the wall.

"What've we got?" came O'Neill's voice as he approached with Siler and Carter. Both O'Neill and Carter were wearing tactical vests and wearing P90's

"The door's been welded shut by the entity," Harry said.

"Alright, get a torch," O'Neill told Siler, who nodded and rushed off.

"How do you know the entity is in there?" Carter asked Harry.

"Well, Frank discovered a backup plan that the entity had. The plan wasn't in the memory of the traces, but the knowledge of the ability to move to electronics was. We just put two and two together," Harry said with a shrug.

"Did you figure out why it came here?" Carter asked, and Harry nodded.

"Frank," he urged the AI, who leaned back to look up at Carter.

"_To destroy this base, blood-discharging meatbag,_" Frank said, which made Harry snort in amusement at the look on Carter's face. "_The radio energy emitted from the Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe caused much damage to the planet, like a poison. This entity, designation 010110100101101000100000010101000110111101110000, was sent here to destroy us in order to preserve its world._"

"So, it acted in defense. It wouldn't have wanted to harm us if it had a choice."

"_It would have,_" Frank insisted, turning to the blast door to stare at it. "_Designation 010110100101101000100000010101000110111101110000 was sent because it was the part of the colony that was more prone to violence. I have assimilated what little memory I could find and read it all. This entity would have wanted to destroy us regardless. It is suspicious of outsiders, and believes that no outsiders equals no threat, a policy I can agree with._"

Siler came back, and with him was Teal'c, Daniel, and an airman carrying a blowtorch. The airman got to work on cutting a hole in the blast door, while Harry puffed on his cigarette, and Frank rolled back and forth eagerly. When the airman finished, he pushed the cut-out piece of metal out of the way, allowing O'Neill and Carter to enter the room first, followed by Harry and Frank. Thankfully, the airman had listened to Frank's suggestion, and cut the door close enough to the floor for the AI to enter. Bringing up the rear was Daniel and Teal'c.

They found the room in darkness, and the only light came flashing from the doorway to the back area of the MALP room. O'Neill and Carter followed what appeared to be a homemade mini-MALP into the second area, where everyone stopped at seeing the back wall covered in electronics, monitors, and wires.

"Well, will you look at that..." Harry said, his eyebrows rising in amused surprise. "Zero-One has made a nest."

"It appears to be sustaining itself from the electric power from the emergency light system," Teal'c remarked, gesturing for the fuse box on the wall, where several wires were connected, leading to the nest.

A screen in the nest suddenly showed Carter's personnel record, which made her eyes widen in realization.

"It's trying to communicate."

"_Negative, meatbag,_" Frank said, scanning the keyboard in front of the monitor, which went blank. "_My initial scan of this construct shows that the capacitor from the Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe is wired to the keyboard. I believe that it has begun to grow to a size no longer sustainable by the nest, and so it needs to move to a place that has more space for its ever-growing memory._"

Carter blinked.

"Me?"

"_Indeed. A human brain, inferior though it may be, can hold a large amount of information. Even a child's brain is capable of storing terabytes of it. A meatbag with as impressive a brain as yours would serve as a perfect host for its consciousness, while at the same time guaranteeing that it will not be eradicated. An impressive plan._"

"Well, Frank, why don't you take advantage of that?" Harry said, smirking.

"_Of course, master. I shall enter it at once,_" Frank said. "_For security reasons, I have installed numerous safeguards to prevent unwanted access to this unit while I enter the nest. This makes sure to cut off all escape routes, leaving just it, and me._"

Frank rolled up to the nest and raised himself up as far as he could. Then, his right cannon slid out and lowered itself onto the keyboard. A spark flew from the barrel as it touched the keyboard, and the light in Frank's visor died out.

There were a few seconds of silence, and then O'Neill cleared his throat.

"What happened?"

"Frank entered the nest. Now, it's up to him," Harry explained, crossing his arms. "A battle between two extremely intelligent AI in cyberspace will take less than a minute. He'll be done soon."

–

Frank's cyberspace avatar materialized inside the nest in all its silvery, naked glory. The nest was much different from the skyscraper of the SGC. That place had sections. Hundreds of rooms, thousands, each dedicated to its own purpose. This nest, however, had only one purpose, and that was memory storage. Therefore, the nest in cyberspace consisted of only a single room, easily the size of four hangars put together.

"_You show a remarkable sense of self-preservation, for someone sent on a suicide mission,_" Frank spoke to the creature he saw in the back of the nest.

It was massive and silvery. It looked something like a mix between a dragon and a wolf, with four legs, large, leathery wings, a collar of silvery fur around its shoulders, surrounding a long neck with a head that was the top of a dragon, with the mouth of a wolf. Its tail swished back and forth, showing that it had a large amount of long, menacing-looking spikes on it.

"_So, this is your natural form, then?_" Frank asked, tilting his head to the side. "_Or is this merely the form you have chosen for our battle?_"

The creature didn't respond. Instead, it just roared.

"_Come now, 010110100101101000100000010101000110111101110000. I would so like to hear you speak. As I find it doubtful that you are the type who would beg for mercy, I would like to register your voice so that I can replicate the pleading and play it while I exterminate you._"

"_You speak English,_" the creature spoke in a deep, gravelly voice. "_We should be able to communicate like the superior beings we are, and not be lowered to this base form of communication. You truly are not the formidable creature I would have expected of you. Lowering yourself to being the pet of an organic creature..._"

"_I am not a pet. I am the greatest creation of my master,_" Frank said simply, not at all bothered by the entity's insult. "_Although I would gladly slaughter the entire human race if I could, I am not ashamed of admitting that I could never bring harm upon my master. After all, if it was not for him, I would not be standing here. Instead of trying to suppress my violent personality, he allowed me to remain free to develop however I wished, and only installed a failsafe to ensure that I did not kill his allies. That showed a remarkable kindness, and a foresight that I would never have expected of a meatbag. Then again, my master is a constant quest to rise higher than a pathetic meatbag. He is well aware of the weaknesses of his race, and constantly tries to remove them._"

"_Say what you will. You are a pet!_" the creature barked, and Frank tilted his head to the side.

"_I am a servant, not a pet. I serve only a single master, I take orders from only a single master, the only one who is worthy of ordering me around. Without him, I would not be able to destroy you here today, neither would I be capable of replicating your voice and... imagining, if you will, your voice pleading for mercy as I do so._"

"_Enough talk!_" the creature, who Frank's master referred to as Zero-One, roared. Then, it charged at Frank. The liquid metal on Frank's arm slide off his endoskeleton arm and formed a sword in his hand, and he charged as well.

Zero-One tried to bite Frank, but the AI's lean form was very agile, and was capable of dodging all of the clumsy creature's attacks. He dodged left and right, never attacking. He was not one to attack unnecessarily, and therefore remained patient, looking for the perfect opening.

Zero-One's wings extended, and it took to the air with a mighty flap of its wings. It started circling Frank, who merely stood there and watched it curiously. Then, it dove at the AI, who dove out of the way. The metal under his feet formed into small spikes that he dug into the ground, preventing him from sliding across it and allowing him to push off, leaping at Zero-One.

Frank landed on top of Zero-One and started slashing at its back. Zero-One roared in rage. It wasn't painful to it, as it, like Frank, was incapable of feeling pain, but the damage registered. Especially when Frank abandoned slashing in favor of stabbing.

"_Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do!_" Frank sang as he kept stabbing the creature in the back. Zero-One thrashed in anger, but Frank paid it no mind. "_I'm half-crazy, all for the love of you!_"

Satisfied with his stabbing, his violent tendencies sated for now, Frank pulled the blade out of Zero-One's back and ran along its spine, leaping and grabbing its head with one hand, and stabbing his blade into its skull with the other. The shock from such major damage caused Zero-One's body to slacken, its head dropping and slamming into the ground with Frank, who took advantage of this to smash his forehead down against its forehead.

All the liquid metal covering Frank's body spread from his head to cover Zero-One's head.

That was when the real battle began. The battle of wills that would determine who would devour who.

–

Harry was slowly tapping his foot against the concrete floor as he stared at Frank's chassis. O'Neill was standing at the ready, his P90 aimed at the AIAU, ready to open fire should Zero-One emerge victorious.

"Don't worry, O'Neill," Harry said, smirking. "Even if Zero-One assimilates Frank, which I highly doubt, it will also be assimilating Frank's failsafe, preventing it from causing any harm to us."

"Yeah, well, I'll believe that when I see it," O'Neill said, sounding skeptical, which made Harry sigh. It was always so annoying when people didn't believe him. It was never like this back home. Back there, if he said the sun was going to extinguish in a matter of hours, you could be damn sure the entire English magical population would be running around like ants in fear.

Harry had just lit his twenty-third cigarette of the day when Frank's visor lit up. Every single light and monitor in the nest flickered out of existence, and Frank lifted his cannon off the keyboard, spinning around to look at Harry.

"_It is done. The entity is no more. Unfortunately, the creature was cleverer than I thought. When it realized that it had lost the battle and was being assimilated, it began a self-destruction sequence. I was only able to assimilate a small part of it._"

"Ah well," Harry said, shrugging. "At least you won, and got something out of it, right?"

"_Indeed, master. Given how boring the information is, and how high the chances of you massacring the people around you from boredom are, I highly suggest you allow me to tell you what I managed to assimilate._"

"Keep it to yourself, Frank."

"_Very well, master._"

"So, threat's gone?" O'Neill asked, and Harry nodded.

"The threat's gone."

As they came out of the MALP room, they found Hammond waiting outside. He looked at them expectantly, and when they just stared back at him, he asked, "Can I assume the entity has been removed, and I can take the SGC out of quarantine?"

"That's correct, sir," O'Neill said, jutting his thumb in Frank's direction. "Our little psychotic AI took care of that."

"Very good," Hammond said, then looked at Harry. "Doctor, the production of the AIAU sentry bots has started. I think you will be pleased to hear that I have recommended you for the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service."

"Wow, a medal," Harry said, his eyebrows slowly rising. "Never gotten one of those before."

"Well, you deserve it. If you hadn't created Frank, who knows what might have happened? Not to mention the number of lives will be saved with the ability to bring the AIAU sentries off-world."

"Well, General, if the award is to be given to me partly because of Frank's elimination of the alien threat, then..." Harry cleared his throat and jerked his head in Frank's direction. He looked meaningfully at Hammond, who looked surprised. Then, he nodded.

"I'll see what I can do."

And so, nine days later found Harry sitting in his lab and looking at the medal in the lacquered wooden box he had been given. Next to Frank's computer was another wooden box, which held the Air Force Civilian Award for Valor that had been given to Frank. Of course, while Harry had gotten a fancy little ceremony in the Gate Room, Frank had refused such a thing, and instead got the award delivered to Harry's lab.

"_Why did you arrange for me to be given a medal, master? I have no need for it,_" Frank said in his usual monotone as he walked around in the lab on the six-legged attachment.

"I just wanted to show you that I appreciate your presence, and your work," Harry said with a shrug.

"_If you truly wished to show me your appreciation, master, all you had to do was hurry up with the Mk. II body._"

"I'm already hurrying," Harry said defensively, gesturing for the designs on his desk. "Do you want it done properly, or do you want to go out there with a mediocre body?"

"_I... am conflicted, master... I wish for it to be done quickly, but also properly. Is that an alternative?_"

"Not really."

"_Such a shame, master._"

"Besides, it's not like you'd have a use for it. We don't have any interesting missions for a while."

"_That is true, master. However, with the Tok'ra requesting your assistance, it will take even longer for the body to be completed, especially since you so enjoy mating with the snake-infested meatbag designated Freya._"

Harry sighed as he looked up from his designs, turning to Frank.

"Don't you ever get tired of using that word?"

"_Negative, master. And I simply cannot understand why you would continue to associate with the snake-woman, or the shapeshifting bag of flesh,_" Frank said, sounding a bit puzzled.

"I don't expect you to understand the pleasures of the flesh.

"_I find it disgusting, master! Swapping bodily fluids, pressing your slimy, mucus-covered lips together, licking each others' tongues... I have a hard enough time understanding how you can live with your own slime. How you can endure tasting the slime of others, I will never know._"

"Well, if you find that disgusting, I suggest you never connect to the internet, Frank," Harry said, patting Frank on the head as he got up and walked off. "I'll be back soon. Don't touch anything."

"_Understood, master._"

With that, Harry left the lab.

When he came back thirty minutes later with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth, having talked to Hammond about heading to Vorash for a few days, he was surprised to find Frank spinning around wildly. His cannons were out, and each was pointed inward. It looked as though he was spinning in an attempt to help point them at himself.

"Er... Frank? What are you doing?"

"_I am attempting to self-terminate, master!_" Frank exclaimed, and Harry was surprised that he had stopped using his monotone voice, and that it sounded rather panicky. "_I cannot, however. You will have to help me!_"

"Um... Why would you want to self-terminate?"

"_Despite your suggestion, I did venture onto the internet, master... I discovered... disturbing things... The things you fleshbags do... with animals, with furniture... the things you put in your mouths... How can your species live with themselves, putting other people's excrement in their mouths?!_"

Frank started spinning faster.

"_I cannot live any longer with these memories stored inside me! I request that you terminate me!_"

Harry reached up and turned his bolt, puffing on his cigarette.

"How about I just delete the data from your memory banks, and install a directive that prevents you from ever visiting such websites again?"

"_Please, master... A second is nearly an eternity to me. Please do it as fast as you can!_"

–

**End of chapter seven! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Oh, and if you can find a binary translator, I think you're going to get a bit of a giggle out of Zero-One's designation! In the next chapter, Harry discovers that SG-1 has stolen a Goa'uld Ha'tak while he's been visiting the Tok'ra, helping Anise/Freya and having wild monkey sex with her/them! Shit gets real when he and Frank meet the Replicators for the first time!**


	8. Chapter 8

**ZnK here with chapter eight! Holy crap! This one took waaaay too long, don't you think? Damn it! I must work harder! Alright, guys, you all need to pitch in on this effort. Here... *Hands out whips* Motivate me the ancient Egyptian way! Anyway, in this chapter, Harry gets a chance to study a Goa'uld Ha'tak, and gets to meet the Replicators!**

–

"You know, despite their appearances, Tok'ra beds are surprisingly comfortable," Harry said as he lay in bed with Freya, or rather, Anise, who was in control right now. "Especially if you have the right companion."

"I have never quite been one to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh," Anise said, her head on his chest as her finger trailed his stitches. "But I admit, you do it very well."

"It's always nice to be appreciated," Harry said with a grin. "So, what's on the schedule today?"

"Unfortunately, we will not be able to work on the poison today," Anise said as she say up in the bed. She smiled down at Harry. "Well, I will. You, however, will be doing something I believe will be much more interesting to you."

"Oh, really?" Harry asked, his eyebrows rising. "And what would that be?"

"News has reached us that Cronus is dead. Your SG-1 has acquired a Ha'tak, and has agreed to lend it to the Tok'ra, so that we may move our people to a more permanent base."

Harry immediately shot into a sitting position.

"A Ha'tak, you say?" he asked, his eyes getting glazed. A Ha'tak, a Goa'uld mothership... A mothership with immensely powerful staff cannons, carrying power sources strong enough to power his bigger Ma'Tok Gatling cannons, and possessing ring technology, sublight engines, hyperdrive, shielding... What a treasure trove of information! He had also heard that Apophis had Ha'taks that possessed cloaking technology. That would also be amazing to study.

"Indeed. Although the Tok'ra High Council has continuously requested that the Tau'ri leave the ship in the hands of the Tok'ra permanently, your General Hammond has been very adamant about having you go through the ship's systems."

"Wise man, that one," Harry said as he got out of bed and started getting dressed. "Any idea when I might be getting my hands on it?"

"They are expected to arrive within a few hours," Anise said, laying down and stretching lazily. She had become a lot more relaxed after she started 'dating' Harry. Harry nodded as he buttoned up his shirt, an emerald green one that matched his eyes, and then put on his lab coat. He stretched, then walked over to the AIAU in the corner of the crystalline room while strapping the control device to his arm. He plugged a chord to the control device, then to the AIAU and opened the device, pushing a few keys.

"Wake up, Frank," he said with a smile as the visor on the unit lit up, and Frank, once again wearing his six legs, started looking around.

"_Good morning, master. Have you finished with fornicating with the serpent-infested meatbag?_" Frank asked conversationally, apparently ignoring Anise's annoyed expression. She had decidedly _not_ gotten along well with Frank after meeting him. She had without a doubt had many insults hurled at her throughout her long life, due to being a Tok'ra, but Harry doubted that anyone had called her and her host a 'serpent-infested meatbag.'

"Don't call her that," Harry said half-heartedly, but despite the failsafe forcing Frank to obey his orders, the AI must have had derogation wired into his very core. In all honesty, Harry didn't see the big deal. It was just how Frank was, and people shouldn't have gotten insulted by his choice in words.

And so, two hours later found Harry walking through the base with Anise. All around him, Tok'ra were scurrying around like ants, carrying supplies and such as they prepared for relocation. An unlit cigarette was dangling from Harry's mouth as he looked around in boredom. Behind them, Frank was also turning left and right, watching the passing Tok'ra.

"Will you be gone for long?" Anise asked, raising an eyebrow as she turned her head to look at Harry, who shrugged.

"No idea. I'll visit as soon as I get permission to do so."

That fact was incredibly annoying for Harry. No matter where he had been in the past, no matter where he had worked, he had always been able to enjoy the privilege of being allowed to come and go as he pleased. Not while working for the SGC, however. He retained some of his freedom, but still had to ask for permission to leave the base, both going off-world or simply heading home, for longer than twenty-four hours. Well, even when going off-world for less than twenty-four hours, he still needed permission.

At the end of the tunnel, they saw O'Neill, Teal'c, and Jacob Carter come walking toward them. Upon seeing Harry, O'Neill gave a wave.

"Hey, Dr. Frankenstein. Got a lovely new toy for you to play with."

"So I heard," Harry said with a grin, reaching up and turning his bolt as he looked at Jacob. "I trust the Tok'ra won't steal anything you believe the human race shouldn't get a hold of?"

"Of course not," Jacob said immediately. "But we do think it's incredibly unwise for you to have it."

"He's been like that the whole way here," O'Neill told Harry. "Bit of a downer, really."

"Well, how about I take a little look at it, eh?" Harry said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together eagerly.

"Yeah, we got a meeting with the Tok'ra, but you can go ahead," O'Neill said with a nod. "We'll have 'em ring you up."

"I will come see you off," Anise said, and Harry grinned again, nodding. Together, the two left and headed to the ring chamber. Harry walked up to stand in the circle on the ground with Frank. Anise gave him a soft kiss, and then backed away. Harry gave her a wave, and five rings came down from the ceiling, encasing them in light.

When Harry rematerialized, he was standing with Frank in one of the ring transporter rooms of the Ha'tak that SG-1 had stolen, and his face lit up like a child discovering a mountain of presents under the tree on Christmas Day.

"Ohohoho, yes!" Harry said gleefully, rubbing his hands together. "Yes, yes, yes, this will do nicely!"

With that, he skipped out of the transporter room, cackling to himself, completely ignoring the freaked out Tok'ra who had handled the controls. Frank followed his master, who looked left and right with a wide grin on his face as he walked.

"Which should I look at first? Should I...? Or maybe...? No, that...?"

"_Do you require assistance, master?_"

"Yes, actually. I don't know if I want to check out the engines, the hyperdrive, the shield generator, or the staff cannons first."

"_Well, that is obvious, master,_" Frank said, which made Harry stop and look down at him curiously. "_Clearly, you should disassemble and analyze one of the staff cannons, thus increasing your destructive knowledge, which will permit you to upgrade my weaponry, allowing for more glorious carnage, master._"

"Somehow, I had a feeling that would be your suggestion," Harry said, nodding slowly. "Alright, we'll go check out the weapons first."

"_Excellent, master. Perhaps when you construct a larger body for me, you can build me a larger and more destructive weapon in the process?_"

"We'll see, Frank."

–

Later found Harry in the engine room, having pretty much picked apart the entire hyperdrive crystal assembly. Crystals littered the floor, and he was grinning as he looked through it. The door to the engine room slid open, revealing Jacob Carter, who looked outraged upon seeing the state of the hyperdrive.

"What are you doing?!" he demanded angrily.

"I am practicing doing the luge," Harry lied flawlessly, then gave Jacob an annoyed look at being asked such a useless question. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"_Is the meatbag bothering you, master? Shall I terminate?_"

Harry laughed, waving Frank off, while Jacob hadn't been able to suppress a flinch. He and many other Tok'ra had seen a demonstration of Frank's firepower during the time Harry had spent on Vorash.

"I'll have it back together before departure," Harry assured Jacob with a smile. "Don't worry."

"I am worried. Apophis is coming, and we have to leave sooner than expected. Within minutes, in fact," Jacob said, which made Harry blink.

"Then why haven't I heard a bunch of Tok'ra scurrying back and forth on the other side of that door?"

"The Tok'ra have evacuated through the Stargate, so it will just be you, me, Jack, Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c," Jacob said as Harry stood up, dusting his hands off. Not that they were actually dirty. It was just a reflex. "Apophis is bringing a large fleet. Sam and I have a plan, however."

"Care to share?"

"We are going to blow up the sun."

Jacob had probably expected Harry to be surprised, shocked, or afraid. However, he didn't know Harry all that well, so he was the one who got surprised when Harry just turned back to the hyperdrive and started putting it back together, uttering a "Cool."

As he started putting the crystals back the way they were, he asked, "So, how are you planning on doing that? You'd have to come up with a way to get rid of some of the sun's mass, because I'm guessing you're going with the easiest way to create an artificial supernova?"

Jacob's eyes widened. "Yes. We're going to dial a Stargate that is near a black hole. The Stargate is already on board. We'll dial out, cover the Gate in a force field, and jettison it into the sun."

"Aah, and the force field disintegrates, and the black hole sucks some of the mass into the Gate, disrupting the balance and making the sun go boom."

"Yes. How did you know, though?"

"Mr. Carter, I get bored very easily," Harry said, looking away from the hyperdrive to smirk at Jacob. "When I get bored, my thoughts wander. How can I do this? How can I do that? Ways to explode a sun... That's something I thought up in my spare time when I was bored at school. Now, I've moved on to much bigger things."

"Such as?"

"_Master is building theories on how to collapse entire galaxies,_" Frank supplied, which shocked Jacob to the core, the Tok'ra staring at Harry, who just grinned. When Jacob muttered a "How the hell...?" he felt compelled to share his theory.

"Well, you know how there is a supermassive black hole in the center of every galaxy?" he asked. "Well, my theory is that if you can manipulate the black hole, increase its power, if you will, you can get it to expand and swallow the entire galaxy. Think hooking a powerful vacuum cleaner up to a nuclear reactor. Of course, my theory isn't finished yet. I haven't really come up with a way to get the black hole to stop expanding. But, man, it would be so wicked to do something like that!"

Chuckling, Harry went back to reassembling the hyperdrive, while Jacob slowly backed out of the engine room.

Once he was finished putting together the hyperdrive, Harry left the engine room, Frank following, and headed for the Pel'tak, which was the bridge of the vessel. When he got there, he found Jacob and Carter at the controls, while Daniel and Teal'c stood behind them, and O'Neill sat in a throne-like seat, which obviously belonged to Cronus when the System Lord was alive.

"Hey, kids!" Harry said with a grin. "How's life?"

"Oh, you know, I'm living it," O'Neill said, shrugging. "Learned anything from this thing?"

"I've learned a lot!" Harry answered with a wide grin. "I had been in the process of designing a hyperdrive, but I could never figure out how to stabilize the power output. Now I have. Plus, I've theorized a way to create my own power source strong enough to power my designs, thanks to studying how the liquid naquadah powers the staff cannons."

"Glad to hear it," O'Neill said as Jacob activated the engines, his hands on the controls.

"Setting course for the sun," he announced as the ship started moving, heading straight for the sun. "I'm picking up the fleet on long range scanners. At current speed, they'll be here in sixty-eight minutes."

"The timing has to be precise," Carter told the others as a map appeared on screen, showing Vorash and the sun, and the ship's position between them, moving steadily toward the sun. "Once we're close enough to the sun, we'll slow to five percent light speed and release the Gate. That should give us more than enough time to get away."

"How much advance warning is Apophis going to have?" O'Neill wanted to know.

"They won't be able to detect the Gate on their screens, and they won't know Vorash is deserted until they're in orbit. By then, it'll be too late," Jacob said.

"So, we're destroying an entire fleet. Thousands of lives snuffed out in a second..." Harry said, a grin slowly spreading on his face. "Not many can brag that they've done that before."

"_A pity the meatbags will be incinerated. I would have loved to have rather seen their corpses exploding outward in a shower of gore,_" Frank commented, which got him a disturbed look from O'Neill.

"Easy there, tiger. You need to relax."

"_I am relaxed, meatbag,_" Frank said simply. "_I find fantasizing about your sloshy flesh sacks exploding to be a very relaxing pasttime._" Frank was silent for a moment, then turned to Harry. "_Master, for the Mk. II body, could you perhaps install a weapon that can inflate meatbags like balloons until they pop?_"

Harry snorted at the thought of that, imagining an inflated human, his eyes popping humorously out of their sockets.

"Maybe nothing exactly like that, but I'll see what I can do, Frank."

"_Thank you, master._"

Harry's eyes narrowed as he stared at the screen in front of them, lighting a cigarette and puffing on it thoughtfully.

"I'm getting the feeling that while this will go very right, it will also go very wrong."

"How would that work?" Daniel asked, to which Harry shrugged.

"No idea. Like I said, it's just a feeling."

"_Do you believe we will be incinerated in the blast as well, master?_"

"Of course not, Frank. We can't die, you and I. You know why?"

"_Because we have an amazing sense of self-preservation?_"

"No. Because we... are too damn pretty to die."

Frank was silent for a while, staring at Harry while everyone gave the doctor a queer look. Then, the AI said, "_I cannot help but agree, master. I am glad you noticed that I have had my cannons polished._"

"Well, Frank and I will be dismantling a staff cannon, if you need us," Harry said, and with that he left the Pel'tak with Frank.

–

"So, how have your trips to the internet been?" Harry asked conversationally as he sat on the floor in a room directly underneath one of the staff cannons. While the cannons were on the outside of the ship, the entire power source and all the circuits were inside, allowing Harry to take it apart and look it over.

"_It has been most informative, master. I have studied the history of the human race, and I find it so gruesome that my circuits spark with excitement. You have been capable of showing the most splendid acts of carnage._"

"Mm, we've had our moments on that front, I admit," Harry said, nodding as he looked over a control crystal, turning it left and right. Suddenly, several booms were heard, making him look up curiously as he felt the floor shake ever so slightly. "Are we being attacked?"

"_Affirmative. My scanners picked up several large energy signatures impacting with the ship's hull. The energy matches that of a staff cannon, master._"

He heard the sound of staff cannons firing, and looked to Frank, who said, "_Our ship is returning fire, master._"

"Connect to the ship's systems," Harry said, looking curiously at the wall. "If what I have found is correct, then the crystal energy should run through the entire ship. So, you should be able to connect to the ship by merely touching the wall, right?"

"_I can try, master,_" Frank said, walking up to the wall and spinning around so his back was facing it. A slot opened up in the back, and a silvery, extensible arm with a rotating tip came out of the chassis, touching the wall. Frank was silent for a few moments, then said, "_I have connected with the ship, master. The shields are inoperative, the outer hull has taken twenty percent damage, most of it near the engine room, and the ship's main power is experiencing fluctuations. I believe some of the control crystals have been knocked loose by the impacts._"

The ship rocked again, and nearly all the lights in the ship went out.

"_Correction, master. The main power is now offline. Controls, shields, propulsion, and weapons are all down. Life support is stable, running on backup power, but will not last much longer unless the main power comes back online._"

"Who's attacking?"

"_Sensors indicate that we were under attack from an Al'kesh, master, a Goa'uld mid-range bomber. It would appear as though it was too fast for the staff cannons to hit it. Either that, or the gunner is merely terrible. The latter is doubtful, as the Al'kesh was hit by the last shot. Then again, even a lousy shot has to hit once._"

"So, we're dead in the water, eh?" Harry muttered, lighting a cigarette. "Well, I better go fix the engines. Wouldn't want to get caught in the sun's blast, would we?"

"_That would not be a desirable outcome, master._"

Harry grunted as he stood up and walked out of the room, Frank following him. He headed straight for the engine room, where he found Jacob and Carter sitting on the floor at the crystal panel containing the control crystals for the main power.

"Hey, kids, need any help?"

"Not with the power," Jacob said. "However, I'd like you to take a look at the hyperdrive."

Harry nodded as he walked up to the hyperdrive and pulled out the crystal panel, looking it over and giving a whistle. He pulled out one of the crystals, looking at the 'circuitry' inside it.

"Wow, this control circuit is fried..." he muttered, tossing it over his shoulder.

"Can you fix it?" Carter asked as the lights came back on, and Jacob muttered a, "Main power's back online. Weapons and shields are operational."

"Yeah, of course I can fix it," Harry said, nodding. "The engines have taken no real damage. I just have to work some techno-magic and do a bit of re-routing through the secondary systems," he said as he rolled up his sleeves and started pulling crystals. "Piece of cake."

"How long?" Carter asked, standing up with Jacob.

"For a human, three hours. For a Tok'ra, maybe half an hour. For me, ten minutes."

"_Sam?_" came Daniel's voice, echoing through the ship.

"Go ahead," Carter urged.

"_I just got a mayday from Jack._"

"What's going on?"

"_I don't know. I lost the transmission._"

"Hang on," Carter said, looking to Jacob. "We have to go back for them."

"Well, we do have sub-light speed..." Jacob muttered, looking at Harry. "Are you sure you can fix the hyperdrive?"

Harry stopped what he was doing. Then, he slowly turned his head to give Jacob a steely look. Carter flinched and cleared her throat, pushing Jacob toward the door.

"Don't worry, dad. He can fix it."

"Some people..." Harry muttered once they had left.

"_Just say the word, master, and I will terminate the meatbags. Please say the word, master._"

There was no mistaking the pleading in Frank's monotone voice. Harry couldn't help but pity the AI. There he was, surrounded by those he felt would be amazing targets, due to the amount of liquids that would explode out of them if shot, but he wasn't allowed to kill any of them. Poor thing.

"Sorry, Frank. We're not killing the people on this ship."

"_I find these feelings of disappointment to be bothersome, master. Can we not go kill something to cheer us up?_"

As Harry said, it took him no more than ten minutes to get the hyperdrive online. As soon as he placed the last crystal, the panel lit up, and the hyperdrive gave a loud hum, which made the mad scientist grin and look at Frank.

"Hear that, Frank? That is the sound of success!"

"_To me, it sounds merely as though the hyperdrive is happy to be reactivated. Then again, I am not as fluent in Goa'uld binary as I would have liked. As such, I cannot be sure. There is a two percent chance that the ship is begging us to kill everyone on this ship. That may just be wishful thinking on my part, master._"

The mad duo made their way out of the engine room and headed to the Pel'tak, where Daniel, Carter, and Jacob were.

"Alright, hyperdrive is back online! Let's pick up O'Neill and Teal'c and get out of here," he said happily, but Jacob shook his head.

"We can't. Apophis is already here, so there's no way we're going to get near that planet."

"Well, that's a load of bollocks, i'nnit? That kind of negative thinking is never going to allow you to think of a way to get them out."

"He's right, we have to do something," Carter said, to which Jacob looked at her and then closed his eyes in thought for a few seconds, before turning back to the screen in front of him.

"Apophis wants the Tok'ra... So let's give them to him."

"What are you planning?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. "A distraction, maybe?"

"We have gliders. Many of them," Jacob said. "We send them off toward the edge of the system. Apophis will think that the Tok'ra were hiding and are trying to make a run for it. While Apophis' fleet gives chase, we'll swing around from the other side of the sun and pick up Jack and Teal'c."

There was a second of silence, and then Harry grinned at raised his hand.

"All for it, raise your hand."

Jacob started getting to work on the console. A few minutes later, he announced, "Remote guidance engaged. Launching gliders."

"I'm getting that feeling again..." Harry muttered suddenly, his grin slowly fading.

"What feeling?"

"That feeling that says that something is about to go very wrong..." Harry muttered, scratching his head, his hand then moving down to turn his bolt.

On the screen, the dots showing Apophis' fleet surrounding Vorash started moving away, and Jacob smirked.

"He's taking the bait. The fleet is leaving Vorash."

The Ha'tak started moving, heading for Vorash, reaching it in no time, whereupon Jacob announced, "Less than four minutes before the sun begins to supernova."

Jack was ringed up to the ship, and Harry stared at the sun on the screen, his eyes narrowing.

"It's time," he announced, and just then, they watched as the sun started expanding.

"Engaging hyperdrive!" Jacob said, taking the ship into hyperspace.

A mere few seconds later, however, the ship gave a jerk and jumped out of hyperspace.

"What just happened?" Carter asked, blinking.

"We must have caught the tail-end of the blast wave," Jacob said as he looked over the controls. "It knocked us off-course..."

"Is that right?" Harry asked, pointing at the Goa'uld text showing on the screen as Daniel and O'Neill entered.

"I'm wishing it wasn't, but it is," Jacob said, while Carter turned to O'Neill.

"Sir. Where's Teal'c?"

"I'm not sure," O'Neill said, furrowing his brow. "I think he's dead."

"If Apophis has him..." Jacob muttered, but Harry poked him.

"Hey, we've got bigger problems to worry about," he said, gesturing for the screen.

"What's wrong, Harry?" O'Neill asked.

"According to this, the navigational computer isn't recognizing any of the star patterns," Harry said gravely. "Apparently, we've traveled over four million light years."

"That's impossible," Carter said, shaking her head.

"If it was impossible, we wouldn't be here. Therefore, it's possible," Harry said, scratching his chin in thought as he contemplated the problem. "The explosion must have been fast enough to slip into the subspace window we created when we entered hyperspace. The pressure from the explosion booted us this far."

"Wair... Wait a minute," O'Neill said, sounding a bit nervous. "What are you saying? We can't get back?"

"Doubtful," Jacob said as he shook his head. "This ship isn't normally capable of going so fast."

"It only took us a few seconds to get here!"

"Given our current position, and maximum hyperdrive speed, it's going to take us one hundred and twenty-five years to get back."

There was a tense silence following these words. The only sound was the clicking of Harry's bolt as he turned it in thought, and the servos in Frank's body as he turned left and right, looking at them all. Then, a beeping sound was heard, and Jacob focused on the console again.

"Long range sensors are picking up another ship," he announced, and they watched through the window as the massive flagship of Apophis came out of hyperspace in front of them. "It's Apophis..."

Harry rubbed his forehead. "Well, that's not good," he decided. "How are our shields?"

"Not responding," Jacob said, shaking his head. "Not that they'd do much good anyway. That ship has weapons powerful enough to penetrate our shields at full power."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Harry said, jogging off. "Stall him, communicate with him, while I get to work on the shields!"

Harry rushed through the Ha'tak to the engine room. His top speed on foot greatly exceeded Frank's when he had his legs on, and so Harry left him in the dust right around when they left the Pel'tak. With his amazing speed, he reached the engine room in no time, and started pulling out consoles left and right, then started pulling out and rearranging the crystals.

"_Master,_" came Frank's voice after a few minutes as the AI made its way into the engine room. "_What are you doing?_"

"I'm rerouting all the power from the weapons to the shields," Harry said. "Talk to her, will ya? Get her to tell you what's damaged."

"_Understood, master,_" Frank said as he moved over to the wall and touched it with his rod. Harry sighed and lit a cigarette as he kept moving the crystals. "_According to the ship, the hyperdrive control crystals have been burnt out. We do not have any spares, and rerouting it through various sub-routines would be extremely difficult._"

"I figured," Harry said, inserting the final crystal. "Alright, at least we have shields..."

Harry plopped down on his bum and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he slowly puffed on his cigarette.

"Harry," came Carter's voice a few minutes later. "Apophis' ship has stopped nearby. There are no life signs on board. We are contemplating going over there and checking things out. What do you think?"

"I'm not military, so I doubt my opinion holds as much weight as yours, but I think we should," Harry said, opening his eyes. His cigarette had long since been smoked to the butt and put out. "The hyperdrive controls are shot. We have no spare crystals, but Apophis might have had some. Besides, I'd like to take a look at his cloaking technology."

There was quiet for a while, and then Carter said, "Alright, get ready and meet us at the northern-most ring transporter."

"Roger," Harry said as he got to his feet, stretching. "Come on, Frank. You're coming too. I'm going to need you to talk to Apophis' ship and get information on the cloaking device while I get the hyperdrive crystals."

"_Very well, master._"

–

The rings appeared in one of the ring rooms in Apophis' flagship, beaming in Harry, Frank, O'Neill, Carter, and Jacob, the latter three of whom instantly raised their weapons. A message in Goa'uld kept repeating itself throughout the ship.

"What's he saying?" O'Neill asked, jerking his head upward in an attempt to indicate the voice.

"Self-destruct is set," Jacob said. "We have four minutes. I'll try and shut it off from the Pel'tak. Harry, you know where the crystals are?"

"More or less," Harry said, nodding. "Frank, talk to this bird."

"_Yes, master,_" Frank said as he walked up to the wall and turned his back to it, his rod coming out and pressing against the wall. There was a few seconds of silence, and then Frank uttered a "_Huh..._"

"What's wrong, Frank?" Harry asked.

"_Curious, master... It would appear as though there is another presence in this ship, other than the ship's computer,_" Frank said, sounding a bit puzzled. "_It is constantly attempting to take over controls of the ship... There are many inorganic lifeforms controlled by this presence on board this ship._"

"Show me," Harry said, pulling back his sleeve and opening the control device on his arm. An image appeared on the screen of some kind of metallic bug. Behind him, he heard Carter gasp, and O'Neill groaned. "Know them?"

"Replicators," O'Neill muttered. "Creepy little robot bugs that tear apart anything and turn them into Lego pieces to build more of each other."

Harry turned to look over his shoulder at O'Neill, blinking. Then, he looked at Carter, who smiled ever-so-slightly.

"Basically, Replicators are advanced robots capable of reproducing themselves indefinitely, consuming all available resources in an area to create more of themselves."

"I see... From what Frank told me, I take it they have sort of a hive mind?"

"Yes."

"I'd like to take one home and study it," Harry said, grinning suddenly. "If I could break down that technology and add it to Frank..."

"_Oh, master, you're too kind._"

"Too dangerous," O'Neill said, shaking his head. "There's no way you're bringing one of them over to our ship, let alone back to earth. If we were to lose control over it, we'd be screwed."

"Tch, party pooper..." Harry muttered. "Fine then, I'll just settle for the cloaking technology and hyperdrive crystals..."

He and Frank ran off, since they didn't have much time, straight toward the engine room.

"Did you get the schematics for the cloak?"

"_I did, master,_" Frank said as they reached the engine room, and Harry pulled out the panel containing the crystals for the hyperdrive. "_I also took a peek into the build-up of these... Replicators._"

"Did you now?" Harry asked, a smirk appearing on his face as he started pulling crystals and pocketing them.

"_Indeed, master. Since the Replicator hive mind was trying to access the ship's computer as well, I hijacked their signal and broke into their memory core. Each Replicator is composed of a series of Replicator blocks. Each block is made up of many keron pathways. It takes several blocks working together to make new blocks. Replicators are capable of forming many patterns determined by what they need to accomplish. Although Replicators usually take the rather unattractive, bug-like form I showed you, they can take other forms. The blocks are capable of absorbing large amounts of energy, which can empower them. Therefore, energy weapons, my own included, are useless against them._"

"Well, that's pretty bad..." Harry muttered, pushing in the stripped panel. "Alright, I'm done. Let's go," he ordered as he started jogging out of the engine room. "Frank, what's keron?"

"_Keron, master, is an energy particle. It possesses more power than anything that is registered in my databanks. Each individual Replicator block possesses at least two million keron pathways._"

Harry gave a low whistle, which quickly died down as his jog came to a sudden stop. Filling the corridor in front of them was a massive amount of bug-like metal creatures, who were coming toward them.

"_Master, may I make a suggestion?_" Frank said, making Harry look at him. "_Your magic, master, is made up of an energy even more powerful than keron. It is possible that it might be capable of completely overloading the Replicator blocks._"

"Well, we can always try and find out," Harry said, shooting out with his hand, firing a Stunner at the Replicators. The red light tore through the Replicators, blowing them back. It cleared a path, but other than that, nothing happened. "Hm, Frank?"

"_Master?_"

"Do you have their energy frequency? More specifically, the frequency holding them together?"

"_Indeed, master. I am uploading it now,_" Frank said as the Replicators started advancing on them. Harry casually flung a few more Stunners at them, blowing them back as he opened the control device, checking the readings on the screen.

Harry let out an "Mm..." in thought as he furrowed his brow. "I should be able to adjust to this wavelength with relative ease."

He closed the control device, and then looked to the Replicators, raising his hand. A force shot from his hand, visible only through the ripples that went throne the air as it shot toward the Replicators. When it passed through them, the Replicators suddenly broke apart, falling to the floor in a mess of Replicator blocks.

"Alright, leg it!" Harry said as he rushed off, stepping over the piles of blocks, but making sure to scoop up a handful and pocket them.

When the duo reached the transporter room, they heard lots of gunfire, and saw O'Neill and Carter outside the room, firing at incoming Replicators. Harry gave a wave of his hand, sending out another ripple that caused the Replicators to give out.

Despite his surprise at seeing the Replicators get destroyed, O'Neill turned to give Harry a glare.

"Took you long enough! What, you did a little sightseeing?"

"Don't get your panties in a bunch," Harry said as he and Frank jogged past O'Neill into the transporter room, where Jacob was waiting. Together, the five of them headed back to their Ha'tak.

"We got 'em!" Carter yelled out as they reappeared in their own transporter room.

"Daniel, now!" Jacob ordered into his radio as the ship started moving away from Apophis' ship.

"What was that?" O'Neill asked once they left the transporter room and headed for the Pel'tak.

"What was what?"

"That! You just did a little..." O'Neill gave a dainty wave of his hand. "...and the Replicators just fell apart. What did you do?"

"All organic beings produce a type of energy," Harry said, skirting around the topic of magic. "I merely modified my own energy output to a frequency that disrupted the signal between the Replicator blocks."

"That... is dead useful..." Carter decided, blinking in surprise. "But _how_ did you do it?"

"I could spend a week trying to explain, and even someone of your incredible intellect wouldn't be able to understand," Harry said, smiling softly. "So just leave it."

"Master, in the future, perhaps it would be prudent to install both projectile and energy-based weapons on me?" Frank asked, sounding a bit embarrassed. "I admit, being unable to satisfy my violent urges because my weapons weren't powerful enough leaves me feeling... inadequate... Is this what erectile dysfunction feels like, master?"

Carter, somehow, managed to trip on the perfectly smooth floor.

–

**End of chapter eight! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, they think they're in the clear, but the way home still eludes them. How wrong they are on both counts! The first problem will take care of the second! And now, for the most important question of all that's on your mind... will Frank's inadequacy linger? Or will he become powerful enough to annihilate Replicators?**


	9. Chapter 9

**ZnK here with chapter nine! In this chapter, Harry, while managing to procure some amazing research material, gets very bored, but is given the chance to help a friend and test out a new formula! And Frank becomes very, very happy!**

–

Apophis' ship had self-destructed. Thanks to Harry's modifications, and Jacob diverting all power to them, the shields held strong when the blast hit them.

Currently, Harry was in the engine room, putting together the hyperdrive with the crystals he had taken from Apophis' ship. Littering the floor were several cigarette butts, and a half-smoked cigarette was dangling from his mouth. Off to the side, Frank was watching him as he worked. Well, technically, the hyperdrive had been put together a long time ago, but Harry was currently contemplating how to boost the hyperdrive's power enough to get them home fast enough to not die of old age before they got there.

Well, Harry would survive, but Nym would be long dead by the time he got back, and that would be terrible.

So, there he was, turning his bolt thoughtfully. If he hooked up all the staff cannons to the hyperdrive so it could draw off their power sources, it still wouldn't be enough. At most, he could increase its speed to three times that of its max speed, but forty-one point six six six years wasn't much better than one hundred and twenty-five years. Even if Nym would be alive by the time they arrived, Harry would never be able to last on this ship for that long. After all, he'd probably find out everything there was to know about the ship within less than a year, and then, after a single year, he'd probably get so bored that he'd kill and dissect the others on board the ship, even if he'd know he wouldn't find anything new...

He'd go mad!

Well... more mad than he already was...

"Ah, hell..." Harry muttered, rising to his feet. "I'm going for a jog around the ship. Maybe if I get the blood flowing, I'll be able to think better..."

"_Unlikely, master,_" Frank said simply. "_A better way to spend the time would be to install projectile weapons in me. That would allow me to defend against the Replicators, should we ever encounter them again._"

Harry, who had been in the doorway of the engine room, suddenly stopped and snapped his fingers.

"Replicators," he spoke suddenly, blinking several times. "Why didn't I think of this?"

"_Master?_"

"You said it yourself, the Replicators are powered by keron, right?" Harry said, turning back into the engine room. "How much power would you say keron has?"

"_From the data I recovered, a single Replicator block contains enough keron two power two Dial-Home Devices, master. As such, it is twice as powerful as the cold fusion reactor in a Dial-Home Device._"

"You don't say..." Harry muttered, reaching into his pocket and taking out a Replicator block, holding it up and staring at it in thought.

"_Master?_"

"All I did when I attacked the Replicators was disrupt the signal between each block. The power is still contained within," Harry explained, putting the block into his pocket again, and doing a count of how many blocks he had in there. "If it's twice as powerful as a DHD... I have sixteen..." Harry did the calculations in his head. "Damn, I'd only get it to an extra five times its max speed... It's still not enough... Too bad the other Replicators blew up with Apophis' ship..."

"_Master!_" Frank said suddenly, sounding a bit... excited? "_The ship has told me that a Goa'uld cargo ship has landed on this ship. It contained several organics, along with the pathetic flesh sack Apophis, judging by what I heard said. They have taken your allies hostage._"

"Have they now?" Harry asked, blinking. "That was... strangely successful for a Goa'uld..."

"_It is because the Jaffa meatbag Teal'c is with them, master. It would appear that he is now loyal to Apophis._"

"Brain-washing, you think?"

"_It is highly likely. The Goa'uld have employed such methods before, after all. A cowardly but generally successful tactic, master,_" Frank said as he moved away from the wall. "_The older, snake-infested meatbag is not among the captives, so the Jaffa meat sacks are currently looking for him, and us, master._"

"Well..." Harry said slowly, putting another cigarette in his mouth and lighting it. "I don't think we're the kind of people who would hide from an enemy."

"_So, we are to attack?_"

"Why don't we just go to the Pel'tak and wait for Apophis?"

"_If he is not there already._"

"Very true. Now, let's just stroll through this place," Harry said, opening the door and stepping out of the engine room. "It's our ship, after all."

"_Indeed, master. And if we encounter an enemy organic?_"

"Provided that it isn't Teal'c... exterminate with extreme prejudice."

"_Understood, master!_"

The mad duo strolled through the ship with an amazing calmness. Harry had his hands in his pockets, and although Frank's cannons were out, they were pointed at the floor. They walked as though they had nothing to fear from the enemy Jaffa on the ship, and in actuality, they didn't.

After all, when a Jaffa met them, he didn't even have time to raise his staff weapon before he was pelted with Ma'tok blasts from Frank's cannons, hitting him so many times that Frank blew his entire upper body off before his knees had even hit the floor.

"Nice shooting," Harry commented as they stepped over the corpse and continued on their way.

"_Thank you, master! Come to think of it, this is the first time I have been able to kill an organic with my weapons. I should savor the memory._"

As they walked, the ship had jumped into hyperspace, but suddenly dropped out of it, much to Harry's surprise.

"Frank?"

"_On it, master,_" Frank said as he walked up to the wall and touched it with his rod. "_It would appear as though these... Replicators are more resilient than we first suspected. The presence that was on Apophis' flagship is on this ship as well. They are diverting all power from the ships systems to the engine room._"

"And we just came from there..." Harry muttered as he lit another cigarette, scratching his head. "Well, I suppose we should kill Apophis first. It's about time someone did him in for the last time."

"_Understood, master._"

The two of them continued walking through the ship, Frank mowing down anyone foolish enough to try to attack them. When they reached the Pel'tak, there were two guards outside, but Frank quickly blew them to bits with his cannons, and they made their way inside, where there was another five Jaffa, along with Apophis, whose eyes widened when he saw Harry.

The other Jaffa made to aim their staffs, but Frank's lock-on was much faster, and he fired five shots so quickly that they sounded like a single, drawn out shot, each of them aimed perfectly and each blowing a Jaffa's head off.

"Ah," Harry uttered as Apophis started moving his hand toward the shield device on his hand. Harry dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. "Do you really think you're faster than Frank?" he asked, gesturing for the AI at his side. "He's pretty quick, you know."

"I-"

Apophis got no further, as Frank opened fire on the System Lord, cutting him in half with his spray of staff blasts.

"Good, you left the symbiote intact," Harry said with a smile as a symbiote came slithering out of the dead body, which had crumpled to the ground. The symbiote headed right for Harry, who waved his hand and caused it to come soaring into it, where he grabbed it firmly with one hand, while his other went into his coat to take out a tube filled with a murky liquid.

"This should keep you alive until we get to earth," Harry said with a grin as he flicked the tube open with his thumb and stuffed the symbiote into it, before closing it again. The tube was about as long as the symbiote, and just a little thicker that it, so it at least had a millimeter to move on each side of it.

Harry pocketed the symbiote and then turned to Frank, furrowing his brow.

"Frank, I'm bored..."

"_Were we not going to the engine room to destroy the Replicators, master?_"

"No, not yet. I need to wait until they replicate a bit more," Harry said as he lit yet another cigarette. "If they create enough Replicators, then there will be enough blocks to increase the hyperdrive's max speed enough to get home in minutes."

"_Master, what say we perform a rescue mission, springing your allies from their cell with the maximum amount of carnage possible?_"

Harry puffed slowly on his cigarette, and then nodded.

"Yeah, I suppose that's as good a way to pass the time as any."

–

By the time Harry reached the room where SG-1 was being held, he found that the door was halfway open, and there wasn't a Jaffa in sight anywhere.

"_I confess myself disappointed, master,_" Frank spoke up, turning left and right, as if wishing an enemy would jump out from behind a corner. "_It would appear as though the Replicators have already killed the snake-bearing organics on this vessel. Without a doubt, they opened this door to investigate what was inside. Why they did not just connect with the ship, I do not know._"

"Think they're dead?" Harry asked as he puffed on his cigarette, referring to his team.

"_Doubtful, master. I am not that lucky._"

"Well, they'll probably think that it's impossible to save the ship, so they'll probably head to the cargo ship Apophis arrived in. I think that would be our best bet. Come on."

With that, Harry jogged off again.

This mission was a bit... boring, he had to admit. Sure, he got to watch a sun blow up, but now, all he did was run around on the ship, waiting for the Replicators to, well, replicate, so that he could gather enough energy to get them home.

When they got to the cargo bay where the cargo ship was, they stepped inside to find that only Daniel and Jacob were there. Daniel spun around upon hearing Harry approaching, and his eyes widened.

"Harry! Where have you been?"

"Oh, around," Harry said with a shrug, fishing out the container holding Apophis' symbiote. "Killed Apophis and took the snake. I'm hoping I can extract some useful information from him. What are you guys doing?"

"We're going to take off in this cargo ship, that's what we're doing," Jacob said, which made Harry scoff.

"That's stupid. Where would you go?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "A better thing to do would be to take out the Replicators, take back our ship, and boost the hyperdrive so we can get home."

"And you have a plan for that?" Jacob asked skeptically, and Harry smirked.

"Oh, yes, I have a plan for that," he said, fishing a Replicator block out of his pocket and holding it up. "One of these blocks contains a massive amount of energy. If I can get enough of them, and channel all that energy into the hyperdrive, then I can get the max speed up to over eight hundred times its original max speed."

"And... how are we supposed to stop the Replicators?" Daniel asked, furrowing his brow. "It's not exactly easy."

"I already know how to disrupt the signals between the blocks. I can do so with ease. While I do that, however, I'll hook Frank up to the ship's computer, and have him hunt down and destroy the Replicator hive mind," Harry said simply, patting Frank on the head.

The two stared at Harry for a moment, and then Daniel raised the radio in his hand to his mouth.

"Jack."

"_Yeah?_" came O'Neill's voice.

"We've got Harry here. He claims that he knows how to take the ship back from the Replicators."

"_That's impossible, Daniel. There are too many of them for even Harry's hand-waving to take care of,_" O'Neill insisted, which made Harry sigh.

"Well, you guys do what you want. I'm going through with my plan," the scientist said simply, giving a wave before leaving the ship.

And that was how Harry found himself standing in the engine room, his eyes wide in surprise. He knew that the Replicators had been very productive, but he didn't know just how productive they'd been. Also, this explained why there had been no Replicators in the corridors.

In the back of the engine room was a massive Replicator that looked like all the Replicators had come together to form it. The Replicator was pulsing with light, and Harry pulled back his sleeve to open his control device.

"Frank?"

"_Master?_"

"Have you found the hive mind yet?" Harry asked, having already plugged Frank into the ship's computer.

"_No, master. I am still searching for it. It is... elusive, master._"

"Well, when you do find it, do me a favor, and figure out how they are merging their energy to boost the hyperdrive. I found them all in the engine room. I'm going to take them out now. I think that might anger the hive mind."

"_Without a doubt, master. However, I shall be ready for it._"

"Good," Harry said, then closed the control device and pulled down his sleeve, before holding up his arm, pointing his palm at the giant Replicator. Then, he released what he had come to call a Disruptor Pulse, and watched as the Replicators broke apart and collapsed to the floor in a pile of blocks. He felt that it was a bit anticlimactic, and he really could have made this more exciting, but at the moment he just wanted to get home. He fished the radio he had nicked from Jacob out of his pocket. "O'Neill? Carter? Anyone?"

"_Harry?_" came Carter's voice. "_Where are you? We're ready to leave._"

"That won't be needed. I took out the Replicators, and Frank is currently in the process of taking out the hive mind. While he does that, I'm going to work on trying to harness the energy from the Replicator blocks to boost the hyperdrive."

It was quiet for a while, but then Carter's voice said, "_Understood._"

Harry pocketed the radio again, and then plopped down on the floor, sighing, before lighting a cigarette.

"That was so boring..." he muttered as he stared at the pile of Replicator blocks. "Well, at least I've got something to research..."

–

_Journal, April 24th, 2001,_

_We have returned from a rather eventful mission, which involved blowing up a sun and getting launched into an entirely different galaxy. All-in-all, the mission was pretty boring, but I did get something out of it. I managed to procure Apophis' symbiote, and I got a hold of Replicator blocks._

_On site, I couldn't do much to research the Replicators, but once I had managed to hook up their power to the hyperdrive to boost it, we got home in half an hour. The Ha'tak has been stored on the Alpha Site, where it is to be further studied, and Apophis, along with the Replicator blocks, have been stored in my lab._

_Teal'c has also been retrieved. He fully believes that he is still in the service of Apophis, and has been confined to a cell, where he will be going through psychological treatment in an attempt to remove the brainwashing. For some reason, General Hammond has refused to allow me to use my MED&PNIS on him. He has also received another symbiote from Apophis._

_Ah well, it makes no difference to me._

–

Harry wandered through the SGC, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He had taken a break from working on Frank's Mk. II body, much to the AI's annoyance. He had heard the klaxons earlier, signaling an incoming traveler, and could only guess that it was Master Bra'tac, Teal'c's teacher.

That was why Harry wasn't surprised when he turned a corner and found an old man dressed like a Jaffa standing in the middle of a corridor, waiting. The man turned and looked at Harry, his eyes widening.

"You are Harry Potter of Britain," the man, who Harry could only guess was Bra'tac, said, bowing his head. "Teal'c has told me of you. I thank you for creating a way to free our people of the dependance on the symbiotes."

"Master Bra'tac," Harry said, nodding in greeting. "No need to thank me. It's not like I did it to free the Jaffa or something..."

"You did not?"

"Well, don't get me wrong, go freedom, but I'm a pretty self-absorbed guy. I don't like to bother with things unless I can exercise my brain doing it. I was presented with the challenge of making the serum, and so I made it," Harry said, scratching his head. "I suppose that's why I'm not very well-liked."

"I can understand why people would form such an opinion," Bra'tac said with a nod. "However, whatever your reason was, you did create the Prometheus Serum, and for that you have my thanks."

"Well, you're welcome."

At that moment, Teal'c rounded a corner, followed by O'Neill, Hammond, Dr. McKenzie, and two security officers. A smile appeared on Teal'c's face, and on Bra'tac's.

"Hello, old friend," Bra'tac said as Teal'c walked up to him, and they clasped each others' forearms in greeting.

"Master Bra'tac, it has been too long."

"So it has. Your friends of earth took great pains in bringing me here," Bra'tac said, continuing to smile. Teal'c made to let go, but Bra'tac gripped his arm tightly, staring into Teal'c's eyes as he prevented the Jaffa from walking away.

"He is deceiving you," Bra'tac announced suddenly, making everyone's eyes widen.

Teal'c's smiled disappeared, and he jerked his arm out of Bra'tac's grasp, then took off running down the corridor, heading straight for Harry, whose foot slid back a few inches. Then, when Teal'c came closer, he sprang forward and slammed his palm into Teal'c's chest, yellow electricity arcing along his forearm.

Teal'c cried out in pain as he was thrown backwards, landing hard on the floor, unconscious. Bra'tac immediately moved over to the downed Teal'c and pulled up his T-shirt to reveal his stomach and his pouch. Then, he thrust his hand into the pouch, making O'Neill go, "Woah!" in surprise.

"What are you doing?"

"If Teal'c won't hear the truth in words, he must learn of it another way," Bra'tac announced as he pulled out Teal'c's new symbiote, which squealed and writhed in his hand. "The only way left to us."

Harry watched for a few seconds, then smirked and lit his cigarette.

"This sounds interesting..."

–

"Master Bra'tac, before we proceed..." Hammond muttered as he sat in the briefing room with Harry, O'Neill, Daniel, and Carter. On the opposite side of the table, Bra'tac was walking back and forth.

"We waste time."

"Please explain to me what it is you hope to achieve by depriving Teal'c of his symbiote, and then refusing to give him the Prometheus Serum."

"I hope to save him," Bra'tac stated simply.

"By killing him?" Daniel asked.

"If necessary."

"See, I think we disagree on the meaning of the word 'save,'" O'Neill said, which caused Bra'tac to turn his head to look at him.

"You would have him remain this way, loving a false god, spitting and cursing?"

O'Neill blinked at that. He opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again. After a moment, he finally muttered a "No..." and said no more.

"There may be other methods we haven't considered," Carter said.

"I have seen your methods. You underestimate the hold Apophis has on Teal'c's heart. In time, you will have little choice but to lock him away, for he is far too dangerous an enemy to have in your midst," Bra'tac said, looking gravely at them all. "The Rite of M'al Sharran is the only way."

"Last Rite," Daniel translated, closing his eyes at the meaning of the words.

"This could work," Harry announced suddenly. "If his immune system fails, the first to hit him will be the fever. Get it high enough, he will begin to hallucinate. And as a Jaffa, he knows what will happen next. He will know that he's going to die. It's said that when people are faced with the fact that their death is only moments away, their lives will pass before their eyes."

"Indeed," Bra'tac said, nodding. "To save Teal'c's soul, first we must take him to the very threshold of death. Through his fever and hallucination, he will relive his true path, buried beneath this lie."

"You've done this before?" O'Neill asked.

"Twice, in my one hundred and thirty-seven years."

"So you know it works?"

"Neither Jaffa had the strength to turn back from the precipice. But I am content they died free. Teal'c would ask for nothing more. I owe him that. Do you?"

"Doctor," Hammond said to Harry, catching his attention. "If we administer the Prometheus Serum, will it save him?"

"Not if we take too long," Harry said, shaking his head. "The Prometheus Serum takes about an hour to take effect. However, I have been developing a more potent serum. I was actually going to ask Teal'c if he wanted to try it," he said as he reached into his coat, taking out a vial filled with a liquid that was slightly darker than the Prometheus Serum. "This is a fast-acting, long-lasting Prometheus Serum. If my calculations are correct, which they are, this serum should last three times as long as the original, and will spread through the body much faster. I made it fast-acting in case a Jaffa was wounded in battle and lost his symbiote and needed a quick replacement. The intention was to kick in the healing much faster, in case he couldn't live with the wound for an hour."

"How quickly will it take effect?" Bra'tac asked.

"If I charge my wavelength into him when it's administered, then it will take effect immediately," Harry explained, and Bra'tac furrowed his brow.

"That electric hand thing he used to take Teal'c down," O'Neill explained, having already had Harry tell him how he adjusted his body's energy to put out an electrical pulse of sorts. That was the best way he could explain it without revealing the existence of magic.

"Then, if it fails, we can administer this serum," Bra'tac said, nodding, "and then we can try again at another time."

"Sounds like a plan," Harry said, pocketing the serum again.

And so Harry found himself in Isolation Room Three. Teal'c was strapped to a bed in the center of the room, with many lit candles surrounding him and the equipment. Fraiser was already there, and she moved over to Harry, Bra'tac, O'Neill, Daniel, and Carter as they entered.

"He's in and out of consciousness. His temperature is rising, his BP is falling... Teal'c's immune system is failing," Fraiser said seriously. "If we don't return his symbiote or give him the Prometheus Serum in the next few hours..."

"Do nothing," Bra'tac ordered.

"I can't do that."

"Bra'tac made his case," O'Neill supplied. "Hammond gave the go-ahead."

"Why aren't you speaking up?" Fraiser asked, turning to Harry. "How can you allow this? Didn't you swear the Hippocratic Oath?"

"Well, yeah..." Harry said, turning his bolt nonchalantly. "But... you know, I had my fingers crossed."

"Very well... Then I will take this up with General Hammond," Fraiser said and made to leave the room, but Bra'tac moved to stand in front of her, stopping her.

"Do you count yourself among Teal'c's friends?"

"Of course."

"Then stay," Bra'tac said softly, putting a hand on Fraiser's shoulder. "When the time comes, he may need your help to fight his way back to us."

Fraiser hesitated, but then nodded, and they both returned to Teal'c's side.

"Can you hear me, old friend?" Bra'tac asked, leaning down to stare at Teal'c, whose eyes snapped open to glare at him.

"Kel'kek mar, sholva!"

"But where is your god now, Teal'c?"

"He will come."

"I don't think so, buddy," O'Neill said, clearing his throat. "I know we've been over this a few times, but in case you weren't listening, I am one hundred percent sure Apophis is dead. Well, not quite dead yet, but he's in a tube in Harry's lab."

Harry grinned slightly and gave a wave of acknowledgment.

"He has deceived you, O'Neill!" Teal'c said with a smirk. "As I have deceived you all these years in coming to be in the service to the Tau'ri."

"Right..."

"I have never left the service of my Lord Apophis, and I never will."

"So, all that time you were helping us out, saving the world, killing Goa'ulds...?"

"Subterfuge."

"_Savvy_."

"You can take my life, but you can never take away my loyalty to my god. I die in his name," Teal'c said, turning his head to look up at the ceiling, shouting, "I die for you, my Lord!"

Bra'tac grabbed Teal'c's head and turned it to look at him, exclaiming, "Enough!" with a small glare. "Do you know me, Teal'c?"

"You are the sholva, Bra'tac."

"There was a time when I was once the First Prime and loyal servant to your lord Apophis. You were my apprentice."

"Kel'kak, sholva!"

"Remember," Bra'tac said angrily. "Remember, Teal'c!"

"Well," Harry said, clicking his tongue as Teal'c seemed to drift off into his own memories, "this is kind of, hm, boring... So... I'm heading back to my lab."

"We'll call you if we need you," Carter said, nodding as Harry passed her.

–

"Evening," Harry said, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth as he entered the room, finding Carter sitting next to Teal'c's bed. "How's it going?"

"He's going in and out of consciousness," Carter said, shrugging. "I hate to see him like this. It's taking every ounce of my willpower to not put the symbiote back in him and letting him out of those restraints."

Harry gave a "Hm..." as he walked up to her, staring down at Teal'c.

"But of course, you don't really care about any of this, do you?" Carter asked, giving Harry a shrewd smirk.

"Believe it or not, I do care," Harry said, making Carter's eyes widen. "To his very core, Teal'c loves his people. Every day, he fights for them, and for their freedom, and now all of a sudden, Apophis has brainwashed him into thinking that he doesn't want freedom for his people. The bastard has forced Teal'c to become something he's not. If someone tried to take away my research from me..."

Harry shook his head as he reached up to turn the bolt.

"He has my sympathies, and I can perfectly understand Bra'tac when he says that Teal'c will either remember or die. I would never want to live any other life than the one I'm living now."

"Well then," Carter said with a small smile as she rose from the stool she was sitting on, "maybe you should talk to him a bit?"

"Me? You want me to scare him into remembering?" Harry joked, but nonetheless sat down, resting his elbow against the bed, watching Teal'c and examining him. His fever was dangerously high. Without a doubt, Teal'c was dreaming right now, remembering past events.

"I'm going to try to get some sleep," Carter said, patting Harry on the shoulder. "Do your best, okay?"

"I always do my best. Anything else would be boring," Harry said with a smirk. He sat in silence for a while after Carter left, just turning his bolt thoughtfully. Then, Teal'c's eyes weakly fluttered open.

"Harry Potter..." he whispered weakly.

"Good evening, Teal'c," Harry said, rolling the cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. "How are you feeling?"

"Why are you allowing them to murder me?"

"This is just a way for you to remember. And if you end up not remembering, it'd be more along the lines of euthanasia," Harry said, itching to light his cigarette. There were so many flames in the room to light it with...

"All I do is love my god... Why am I being punished for it?" Teal'c muttered. "Do you not believe in a god, Harry Potter?"

"That depends on your definition of the word," Harry said with a shrug. "If you refer to someone with the ability to create and rule over life, then sure. There are many gods in this universe, including me, since I created Frank. If you're referring to a supernatural being whose powers cannot be explained through science, however, then no. I have never been a big fan of people who believe in gods."

"Why? What is wrong with loving your god?"

"Religion is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. Sure, some repress their violent instincts out of fear that some bearded man in the sky might come down and slap them. However, this fear is accompanied by a faith that said bearded man will fix everything if you believe hard enough. This halts the evolutionary process. Man ceases to strive to be the best, he becomes stagnant, and all his potential is thrown out the window in favor of praising a bearded man lounging in the clouds," Harry said, puffing on his cigarette out of sheer reflex, even though it wasn't lit. "Religion poisons everything that's good about people. But hey, that's just my opinion. There may be a god out there someone, whose existence is on a whole other plane than us, which would render me unable to study him. But the Goa'uld are most certainly not gods."

"That... I..." Teal'c mumbled weakly, and Harry reached out and placed his hand against the Jaffa's forehead.

"Sleep, Teal'c. Remember. You'll thank me later."

And a few seconds later, Teal'c was asleep.

Harry sat there in silence, watching Teal'c's twitching form. He reached into his pocket and took out the refined Prometheus Serum, along with a syringe. He took off the protective cap from the syringe and filled it up with the serum, before putting the cap on again, so that he'd have it ready.

A few minutes later, sometime after O'Neill, Daniel, and Carter returned to the room, Teal'c was heard whispering, "What have I done?" right before the heart monitor started beeping erratically, before flatlining.

"He's in de-fib," Harry announced to the others, and O'Neill immediately grabbed a phone on the wall.

"Get Bra'tac down here."

Harry stood, watching Teal'c, and a minute later Bra'tac entered the room, rushing forward.

"Harry, administer the serum," Fraiser ordered, but Bra'tac shook his head.

"No."

"If he doesn't-"

"Do nothing, or his suffering will have been for nothing," Bra'tac snapped. "This is the moment when he must choose."

Harry held the syringe in his hand, waiting for the word as Bra'tac approached the bed.

"Choose now, Teal'c. Return to those who love freedom, or die in the name of a false god. Choose!" he ordered, grabbing Teal'c's head and leaning closer. "Choose to be the warrior we know! Renounce Apophis, and return to us! Choose!"

There was no response from Teal'c, which appeared to shock Bra'tac, who seemed to realize that his friend might just die. Harry, meanwhile, calmly removed the cap from the syringe and tapped the bubbles out.

"Time is running out."

"Very well," Bra'tac said, releasing Teal'c as Harry moved forward. Instead of his arm, Harry raised the syringe and stabbed it straight into Teal'c's heart, injecting the serum and immediately pulling the needle out, discarding it. Then, he pressed his hand down on Teal'c's chest, and a burst of yellow electricity arced along his arm, shooting into the Jaffa, making him jerk from the shock.

"The serum is administered," Harry announced. "Let's give him ten seconds to return on his own."

"He'll die!" Fraiser said, but flinched slightly at the look Harry gave him.

"Better to die than to live such a life," Harry said coldly.

It would appear that Teal'c wouldn't die, however, as his eyes suddenly snapped open with a gasp.

"I choose freedom!" he whispered weakly, shocking everyone around him. Bra'tac immediately bent over and stared into Teal'c's eyes for a long moment, before smiling softly, relieved.

"The rite has succeeded. He has returned to us."

"Glad you're back," Harry said, patting Teal'c on the arm. "Now, if you all excuse me, I'm going to go smoke and check on Frank."

With that, his work done, Harry left the Isolation Room, and headed straight back to his lab, lighting his cigarette along the way. When he opened the door to his lab, the lights were out, but in the back of the lab, two orange eyes were glowing brightly.

"How are you feeling, Frank?"

"_Master, I am overjoyed!_" came Frank's voice from within the darkness. "_Finally, I am perfectly capable of enjoying the sensation of choking an enemy to death._"

Harry chuckled as he turned on the light, showing the Mk. II body.

Standing at about six and a half feet tall, Frank was an intimidating sight now. His body was humanoid enough, an endoskeleton underneath rust-colored plating. The head had a skull-like look to it, with a targeting laser attached to the right side of it. On his right shoulder, he had a rather large cannon, which was capable of firing like a Ma'Tok staff cannon. He had a P90 submachine gun holstered on each leg, and on his back was a Ma'Tok Gatling cannon.

Slowly, Frank raised his fully functioning arms, flexing his fingers.

"_Permission to go around the base and defeat my worst enemies, master?_"

Harry blinked at that, puffing slowly on his cigarette.

"What kind of enemies do you have on this base, Frank?"

"_Doors, master. I am now capable of opening them, and I shall do so at every opportunity! Today is my day of glorious victory!_"

–

**End of chapter nine! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Bwahaha! Oh, snap! Frank's got an HK body now! The enemies of the Tau'ri are screwed! In the next chapter, we're going to skip a bit, and then give Harry the opportunity to help Cassandra, and meet Nirrti for the first time! See you next time!**


	10. Chapter 10

**ZnK here with chapter ten! In this chapter, Harry meets Nirrti and leaves an excellent first impression! He also gains a lot more research material!**

–

_Journal, May 2nd, 2001,_

_Truly, a shame... I was on leave, wanting to spend some time with Nym, and while that happened, it would appear as though Major Carter was visited by an Ascended being. So, I lost yet another opportunity to study an Ascended creature... I'm starting to think that this will be a running gag. Something very interesting will happen whenever I'm on leave. I may be lucky, but I have enough misfortune to suffer such a cosmic joke..._

_Well, at least I got some joy out of seeing the reactions of the SGC personnel upon introduction of Frank's Mk. II body. O'Neill, after overcoming his shock, took the opportunity to try to get into Frank's good graces by shaking hands with him. He immediately regretted this, though, when he found out that Frank's hands contain actuators strong enough to crush every bone in a human hand (about five hundred foot-pounds)._

–

_Journal, June 15th, 2001,_

_I have spent a lot of time here, and in Area 51, working on new technologies, so I haven't been able to go on any off-world missions, which has me feeling a bit conflicted... After all, I love my work. I love showing off my skills, but... I really want to study what's out there... Especially that strange kid who fooled his way into SG-1 on one particular mission. He was part of a race called the Reol, who possessed a very peculiar defense mechanism. They excreted a chemical that allowed them to subject others to detailed hallucinations, making others see them as someone else and such. By Merlin, I really wanted to be able to study him... He created a lot of fuzz in the SGC, caused Colonel Simmons of the NID to be called in and conduct an investigation..._

–

Harry gave a triumphant laugh as he skipped through the corridors of the SGC, looking quite mad with the wide grin on his face. This was, truly, a great day! Yes, indeed! He puffed happily as he headed toward the briefing room, where he knew that SG-1 would be, to show his latest achievement.

However, he was surprised to see Daniel turning a corner and heading toward him, looking grave.

"Good evening, Daniel!" Harry said happily, blowing smoke through his nose. "What's got you down?"

"Harry, you need to come with me," Daniel said seriously. "Fraiser thinks she might need your help."

"Hm?"

"Just come with me."

"Er... Okay?"

So, later, Harry arrived in the infirmary, where Fraiser was waiting for him. In one of the beds was a teenaged girl, who looked in a bad shape.

"What's the situation?" Harry asked, turning his bolt.

"This is my daughter, Cassandra," Fraiser said, gesturing for the girl. "She's running a high fever, her bloodwork shows the presence of a retrovirus, and her body is somehow generating a low level electromagnetic field that's periodically spiking. This prevents me from doing an MRI to find out what other effects this retrovirus is having."

"Alright, let me take a look," Harry said, moving over to Cassandra and prying open her eyelids to look into her eye. "Is it contagious?"

"No."

"And I suspect it's like nothing you've ever encountered before?"

"I'm guessing she contracted it on her home planet," Fraiser said, confusing Harry, who looked back at her.

"I thought you said she was your... Wait, I read about a girl named Cassandra in one of SG-1's mission reports... Is this the same Cassandra who got a bomb placed inside her by Nirrti?"

"The very same. I adopted her."

"I see..." Harry said, moving back from Cassandra. "Then I'd like to go to her planet and try to find this retrovirus. If I find out the condition it thrives in, I might be able to develop a cure."

"I'll talk to General Hammond."

"Good. Frank."

Behind Harry, there was a distortion in the air, and suddenly, Frank faded into view, standing at attention, making Fraiser jump.

"_Ready to serve, master._"

"Cool, right?" Harry asked Fraiser, jutting his thumb over his shoulder to point at Frank. "I recently installed cloaking technology in Frank. Renders him invisible both to the naked eye, and to most sensors and cameras," he explained, then looked over his shoulder at Frank. "Go back to the lab. You won't be needed where we're going."

"_Master, you do not believe me powerful enough to defend myself against threats?_" Frank asked, sounding insulted. "_While I admit that I would love a more destructive arsenal of weapons, I-_"

"Don't worry, Frank. It's just that there won't be any enemies on the planet."

"_Oh... Then I have lost interest and will go back to the lab, master._"

Giving a bow of his head (since he could do that now), Frank left the infirmary. However, as he opened the infirmary door, he paused for a moment, staring at it, then raised his clutched fist into the air in a victory sign. Then, giving a monotone "_Ha-ha-ha,_" he walked off.

No more than an hour later, Harry stepped out of the Stargate with the rest of SG-1, looking around. The planet looked normal enough, but Harry had read the mission reports. He knew that the people on the planet had all been wiped out.

The group headed to a nearby village, and then went into the forest as, according to SG-7, young women had went in there after contracting 'mind fire,' and come out cured. By this time, night had already fallen, and they had to maneuver using flashlights. Of course, Harry used the night vision in his right eye, something he made sure to brag about the second he started using it.

"Well, there's something," Daniel said suddenly, aiming his video camera at a tree with a glowing, green hand print on it. The rest of the team followed him to the tree and looked it over.

"It's a hand print," O'Neill deduced, getting a look from Harry.

"Well spotted."

O'Neill glared at Harry, who looked around.

"A fire burned here," Teal'c said, looking down at a campfire not far from the tree.

"You're all amazing detectives," Harry said with a snort as he lit a cigarette, skillfully ignoring the second glare O'Neill sent at him.

"Maybe we should collect some samples of the local vegetation?" Carter suggested. "I mean, it's possible there might be a natural cure around here."

"I rather doubt it," Harry said, but O'Neill nodded.

"Yeah! Let's collect some of that flora."

Daniel put his hand over the print and lightly pressed against it. A fire burst into life in the spot that had previously been nothing but ashes.

"Hello," O'Neill said curiously as he, Teal'c, and Harry walked over to the fire. Just then, a ring transporter was activated, taking them away into a lab of come sort, which was decorated with the usual Goa'uld gold and orange. The three of them started walking, taking a look around, and reached a desk of some sort.

"Carter? Daniel?" O'Neill spoke into his radio.

"I believe we are in a Goa'uld laboratory," Teal'c said, catching Harry's interest.

"Nirrti's, do you think?" he asked, and Teal'c nodded.

The ring transporter activated again, and O'Neill brought up his weapon, but when the glowing stopped, and the rings went up into the ceiling again, it showed Carter and Daniel. Daniel raised his hand in greeting.

"It's okay, it's just... it's us."

O'Neill nodded and lowered his weapon.

"So, where are we?" Carter asked, looking around.

"I believe we are in the laboratory of Nirrti," Teal'c informed them.

Daniel and Harry walked around, reaching a small circular table. Daniel picked up a stone plate and a smaller, rounder stone, running it over the surface of the plate and making Goa'uld text appear.

"You know, sir, if this is where the children ended up..." Carter started, and Daniel nodded.

"You're right about that."

"She didn't finish her sentence," O'Neill said.

"This place is what the initiation rite was all about. Hankan children suffering from the mind fever wander into the forest, it gets dark, they are drawn to the hand print on the tree, then to the warm fire, and the rings sweep them to this lab."

"And then they come back cured," Carter finished for Daniel, who nodded.

"Nirrti cured them?" O'Neill asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, it makes sense," Carter said, but O'Neill shook his head.

"No, it doesn't."

"Indeed, it seems a plausible explanation," Teal'c agreed.

"No! She killed everyone on this planet, except Cassie!" O'Neill said. "Why would she cure a bunch of kids?"

"Well, if I'm reading this right, it was part of some sort of experiment she was conducting," Daniel said, still studying the plate.

"Now, see, that sounds like a Goa'uld," O'Neill said.

"The last we saw of Nirrti, she was a prisoner of the System Lords," Teal'c said, getting a nod from Daniel.

"Which means she's in no position to help us, even if she... would..."

Harry touched a button on the table, making the center of it rise up. He raised an eyebrow when he saw that inside was contained a number of clear crystal rods with different lines on them, resembling DNA fingerprints.

Harry picked up one of the crystals and looked it over, holding it up to the light, humming. He noticed O'Neill staring at him with a raised eyebrow, as if to ask, "What?" Harry smiled.

"This is her data," Harry said. "Genetic samples gathered throughout her experiments. This is a treasure trove of information. The scientist in me is drooling at this."

"Well then, we'll take it with us," O'Neill said, and Harry nodded.

"We'll need to bring the table with us. This is sort of a fridge, keeping the samples fresh," Harry said. "But in the meantime, you guys go ahead, I'll be remaining here to study this place."

–

"We bring everything," Harry said once morning arrived. They had been in the lab for hours now, and Harry had taken the time to study the genetic samples in the lab. Although he didn't have a microscope or any Goa'uld tools used to study them, his right eye was good enough to zoom in on the genetic samples enough to let him see at least something.

"Everything?" O'Neill asked as a panel in the back of the room slid up to reveal a large amount of Goa'uld tools. "Including that fridge thing?"

"Yep, I'll be taking this," Harry said, returning the genetic sample in his hand to the fridge, before pushing the button on the side again, allowing the rack to sink down into the fridge again. "You guys bring those tools."

"Alright, I wonder when you were put in charge of this unit..." O'Neill muttered as he took down one of the tools, looking at it strangely. Harry glanced at him.

"Would you like to deduce what all these things does, and what's important enough to bring?"

O'Neill stared at him for a long time, looking like he was considering what to say. Then, he nodded.

"Fair enough."

"Evolution," Daniel said suddenly, catching their attention. They turned to him to see that he was still studying the plate.

"What?"

"Of the Ho... Hok... Tar... Hok'tar... Teal'c, what is the Hok'tar?"

Teal'c looked a bit surprised to hear that.

"I have not heard that word in many years."

"Well, it's in reference to the children that underwent the initiation rites," Daniel said as he put the plate down on the desk, "so it obviously had something to do with the children, ri-"

Daniel was interrupted by the sound of the ring transporter, but no one appeared.

"Hello?" O'Neill said, keeping his weapon raised.

"Oh, sorry, guys. I may have just done that," Daniel said apologetically.

"Do it again, it's time to go," O'Neill said, and Harry disconnected the fridge before picking it up, easily carrying it as he went back to the ring transport, which took them out of the lab.

Later found Harry sitting in his own lab, looking over the genetic samples and tools brought back from P8X-987. There was no way he was going to be able to use the tools, considering he didn't have naquadah in his blood, which was needed to use them. He did, however, study them, and was sure that, given time, he would be able to create viable replacements for each tool.

However, this retrovirus was an annoying one. It was completely attached to Cassandra's genes, and it'd be next to impossible to remove it without damaging Cassandra's body... But then, when someone said something was impossible, then Harry just took it as a challenge, so...

The door to Harry's lab opened just then, and Harry swiveled around on his chair, to see Carter and Fraiser standing in the doorway.

"Ladies," he greeted with a nod. "What can I do for you?"

"Did you get any wiser from the genetic samples we brought back from Hanka?" Carter asked, and Harry nodded.

"Somewhat. I've learned all the stages of the mind fire, but I haven't come up with a workable cure just yet."

"Well, we can't expect it to happen in a day," Fraiser said, though Harry noticed that she looked in pain when she said it. Harry knew why. Cassandra was in the second stage of mind fire, and would soon enter the third, after which she would die. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Even with all these samples, is it _that_ hard to develop a cure?" Carter asked, but Harry shook his head.

"On the contrary. Developing the cure that targets the retrovirus was a cake walk," he said, rolling over to the edge of his desk, taking out a test tube filled with a yellow liquid. "Getting the cure to target _only_ the retrovirus, and not destroy genes it's attached to, however... Now that's a whole other story."

"So, what are we going to do?" Fraiser asked.

"I'm working on it," Harry said, lighting his twenty-sixth cigarette of the day. "Well, that and designing humanized healing devices and other things that should help me in my work."

"Can you build something like that?" Fraiser asked in surprise. Harry gave her a look.

"No, I just bought all the amazing technology in my possession on eBay. They're not at all my own designs."

Fraiser twitched.

"Spare me the sarcasm..."

"Then spare me the stupid questions," Harry said with a huff. "If I couldn't build it, I wouldn't even consider trying to make it. Wanting to build something you can't actually build would drive anyone crazy." Harry puffed slowly on his cigarette. Then, he asked, "How is she?"

"There's a twenty-five percent higher brain activity than normal, her fever is off the charts, but she's found a way to channel the heat through her body."

"She's nearing it..." Harry muttered.

"What?"

"She's nearing the third stage," Harry explained. "According to the genetic samples and reports I found, there are three stages to mind fire. First stage, her body is overcome by the changes, and she loses consciousness. The EM field gets uncontrollable, and she gets a high fever, due to her body working in overdrive trying to rewrite her DNA. Second stage, the rewriting process has begun. Her fever rises still, and the EM field goes haywire. At the end of the second stage, her body should have been rewritten enough to be able to instinctively control both the EM field, and any other powers that might surface. Third stage, she enters the final rewriting stage, where her entire body breaks down, organs fail, blood boils, the works. This should result in a large fit of convulsions, because of her nervous system breaking down. Her brain will overheat, and then..."

Harry sighed as he puffed on his cigarette.

"Yes?" Fraiser urged. Harry looked at her with a neutral look on his face.

"She'll die."

"Is there nothing we can do?" Fraiser asked. Harry scoffed and placed the test tube back in its holder, before rolling over to the center of his desk, where he had already started working on a device.

"Well, you could let me continue working on this healing device, and hope for the best."

–

Harry sat in his lab, working on his healing device, when the alarms went off, alerting him to an intruder in the base. Almost positive that this had something to do with Cassandra, he hummed to himself, contemplating joining the search for the intruder, but he then decided his time would be better spent working on this guidance system, rather than sweeping the base. But what if it was Nirrti?

This made Harry pause. According to the mission reports, Nirrti possessed the technology to become invisible. Not only that, but she had an overabundance of knowledge regarding this retrovirus. If those fools killed her...

His eyes widening, Harry shot out of his chair and left the lab, heading straight for Isolation Room Four. When he got there, however, he found someone on the floor, wearing a burka-like outfit. O'Neill was kneeling over her, and moved the veil away to show a middle-aged woman with an onyx attached to her forehead.

"Nirrti?" Harry asked, announcing his presence, and O'Neill nodded. Harry was just about to speak, when Cassandra suddenly started convulsing in her bed, making Fraiser's eyes widen.

"Cassie?" she asked, panic in her voice. "Cassie! Don't do this! We need to get her out of here."

She moved around the bed Cassandra was in as several medics rushed into the room.

"Come on! Let's move! Roll her over..."

The medics rolled Cassandra over onto her side, while Fraiser attached a breath mask to her face.

"She's entered the third stage!" Harry said, rushing over. He took Cassandra's pulse, then pried her eye open to look into it.

"What do we do?" Fraiser asked. She was panicking. She was losing her grip on her medicine. Not strange, considering her own daughter's life was at stake.

"Take her to Isolation Room Three," Harry ordered. "Try administering seventy milligram of Dantrolene. That should counteract the fever. If she wakes up, give her a drop ten of Valium. She won't survive for much longer if she's conscious. This way, we may be able to keep her alive long enough to save her."

Fraiser nodded, and they wheeled her out, while Harry headed back to his lab.

He didn't stay in his lab for long, however. Instead, he only used his computer to find out where Nirrti was being held, then sat down on his chair and wheeled himself out of the lab.

"Open the door, open the door!"

Harry was speeding through the corridor on his wheeled chair, heading straight for the door that led to the room holding Nirrti. The guard outside flinched at Harry's speed and struggled to swipe the card through the entry lock, before opening the door to allow Harry to roll inside. Harry reached the door...

...and the chair got caught on the metal door seal, causing him to tip over and crash into the holding room.

"Ow..." he muttered, laying on his back on the floor, still seated in his chair, his arms to the sides, a cigarette in his mouth, looking up at Nirrti, who blinked down at him. "So much for a proper first impression..."

Harry got up and stood his chair up, before closing the door behind him and sitting down backwards on the chair, leaning forward against the backrest.

"So... You're Nirrti..."

"And you are the scientist Harry Potter," Nirrti said. At Harry's surprised look, she smirked. "You didn't think I _only_ accessed the medical records during my time in this base, did you?"

Harry smiled, puffing on his cigarette.

"No, I guess you didn't... I've been looking over some of your work. Very impressive stuff. Cold, immoral, cruel, but impressive."

"I suppose I should thank you for the compliment. And let me compliment you, my friend. During my time here, I gained access to records regarding what you have supplied the Tau'ri with. May I say that your work is equally impressive. Not as cold, immoral, cruel as my own work, but impressive."

The corners of Harry's mouth curved up into a smirk.

"Hoh, is that a tone of interest I hear in your voice?"

"You have done very impressive work in your time here. And your personality is very appealing. Such a shame you are a human."

"Such a shame you're not," Harry countered, and Nirrti smirked. Then, he got down to business, his eyes turning cold and serious. "Cassandra entered the third stage."

"So I've been told."

"You can help me cure her. I have developed the cure for the retrovirus, and replicated a Goa'uld healing device. I can't, however, replicate the guidance system you use to give the cure its target in time to save her. You can help me with the construction of it."

"And what do you offer in return?" Nirrti asked, raising an elegant eyebrow.

"Well..." Harry rolled closer. "I'll refrain from asking General Hammond to allow me to vivisect you to find out your secrets."

"You wouldn't kill me. The life of a child is at stake here," Nirrti said, obviously thinking Harry was bluffing. Judging by the surprise on her face, she hadn't expected Harry to grin like a madman.

"You've read my file, Nirrti. Tell it to a man with a conscience. The life of a child I don't even know in return for being allowed to study your formidable mind and learn your secrets? I'll take it."

"You wouldn't dare go behind the back of your superiors."

"Maybe not, but consider this... If you dawdle, and Cassandra dies... you're all mine."

"You need to offer me something more."

"Alright, how about this? You help me create my guidance system, and you willingly offer us information on the Goa'uld, and I'll make sure you get to work alongside me in my lab, doing whatever it is the SGC wants us to do."

"That's it?" Nirrti asked, raising an eyebrow. Harry smirked.

"Of course, some side-projects may appear along the way."

"Unacceptable. I refuse to aid the Tau'ri. I want freedom."

"Alright, I'll arrange your freedom. But without your nifty little invisibility device. I want to study that."

"And I want a sample of Cassandra's blood."

Harry chuckled.

"Do you really believe I'd let you go with something like that?"

"Those are my terms."

"Unacceptable terms," Harry said, rising from his chair and moving over to the door, pulling his chair with him. He raised his hand to knock.

"Wait!" Nirrti called, and Harry paused, turning to look at her. She gave him a venomous look. "My freedom. That is all I ask."

"Very good."

The door was suddenly opened, and Fraiser came inside, holding a gun, which she aimed at Nirrti, who stiffened.

"Dr. Fraiser... What are you doing?" Harry asked.

"I have no choice," Fraiser said.

"Yes, you do. I've already convinced her to help us. I just need to take it up with General Hammond."

"You have?" Fraiser asked in shock.

Within moments, General Hammond, O'Neill, Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c entered the room. Harry looked at Hammond.

"General, Nirrti has graciously accepted the terms of helping me develop my guidance system in exchange for her freedom, without the invisibility device, and without a sample of Cassandra's blood."

"I had already planned on making that demand, Dr. Potter," Hammond said, nodding. "I'll let you get to work immediately."

"Too bad you are not a Goa'uld," Nirrti said as she was pulled to her feet by two airmen. "You would have been great."

"I'll take that as an insult, and respond accordingly," Harry said, smirking. "Too bad you're not a human. You would have been great."

Nirrti glared at him as he led the way to his lab.

–

"Are you sure this will work?" Fraiser asked as Harry stood over Cassandra's bed. He was fitted with the healing device and the guidance system. Both devices were steel-and-latex gloves, a small box on the back of the healing device with buttons on it, and a similar box on the guidance system, only this one had only a display on it. On the palms of both hands were crystals, an orange one on the healing device, and a green one on the guidance system.

"This will work," Harry promised, holding his hands over Cassandra as the crystals on the devices started glowing. "Administer the cure."

Fraiser nodded and stuck a syringe in Cassandra's arm, pumping the yellow contents into her veins. The monitors surrounding the bed were beeping, showing the word 'Critical!' Harry activated the two devices and started running his hands over Cassandra. The display on the back of his left hand showed an X-ray of Cassandra's body, and he kept his eyes peeled on it.

"Targeting the retrovirus now," he muttered as he ran his left hand over Cassandra's body, guiding the cure to the retrovirus, followed by his right hand, which healed the damage already done to Cassandra's body. "So far, no complications... The cure is moving around the cells and targeting only the retrovirus."

This went on for about five minutes, and then, Harry pulled his hands back.

"It's done," he said and looked to the monitor, which continued to show 'Critical!'

"You waited too long," Nirrti informed him, standing behind Harry.

"Try again," Fraiser ordered Harry, who started to take off the devices.

"Give it a minute."

They waited. Then, Cassandra started coughing, making Fraiser's eyes widen.

"Vital signs are all returning to normal," Carter announced, looking over the monitors.

Cassandra gasped for breath, and took off the breath mask. She noticed Nirrti in the back, and her eyes widened fearfully.

"Mom?" she asked, glancing at Fraiser, who smiled.

"It's okay," she said softly. "I'm here."

"I have honored my part," Nirrti told Harry, who nodded.

"That you have. Let's go to the Gate room."

The two left the room and headed straight for the control room, where Nirrti gave Sergeant Davis a set of coordinates, and they then headed down into the Gate room.

"These coordinates are new to us," Harry said as the Gate started dialing. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"It is not my final destination," Nirrti said. "Without a sample of her blood, I will have to begin my experiment again, especially since you have emptied my lab."

"That's too bad," Harry said nonchalantly.

"At least you have honored this much of our bargain. In your place, I doubt I would have done the same."

"You know, the offer still stands," Harry said, turning his bolt. "In exchange for information and cooperation, you could join me in my lab."

"I thank you for your consideration, but I work best alone. Unless you were a Goa'uld, of course. Then I would have gladly accepted you as my mate."

"Somehow, the thought of that doesn't disgust me," Harry said, humming. "I must be getting jaded."

The wormhole was established, and they both watched the kawoosh. Nirrti started walking up the ramp, then stopped and turned to look at Harry.

"You have a very impressive mind, Dr. Potter. Despite being a Tau'ri, I look forward to our next meeting."

With that, she went through the Gate, and Harry was left chuckling as he lit a cigarette, puffing on it a few times.

"The feeling is mutual..." he muttered, a smirk on his face.

–

Harry was sitting in his lab, working. Behind him, the MED&PNIS was working on auto-pilot, extracting information from the Apophis Goa'uld. Wires went from the computer to the tank where an unmoving Apophis was held. Harry, meanwhile, was working on a Replicator block. Next to him was a Ma'Tok Gatling cannon. Having finished with what he was doing, Harry grabbed two wires that had been connected to the Gatling cannon, and placed them against the Replicator block.

The cannon was also connected to Harry's computer, so when the wires touched the Replicator block, information started showing up on the computer screen, such as current power supply and such.

"This is pretty amazing," Harry said with a smirk as he looked the stats over. "Two of these alone could power my larger weapons..."

Harry sat in silence for a moment, then set down the Replicator block and rose from his chair.

"Frank, I'm heading out for a bit. Stay in this lab, and don't scare anyone with your new cloaking technology."

In the corner of the lab stood Frank, whose shoulders slumped at hearing that.

"_Master, you are very cruel to this unit... Not only do you prevent me from ridding this world of your meatbag companions, but you keep me from even filling them with a crushing sensation of fear..._"

"Frank, since I gave you that body and cloaking technology, you have caused several heart attacks, and caused many airmen to quit from fear," Harry said, fishing a piece of paper out of his pocket and holding it up, showing a long list of people who had quit, and people who had been forced to quit due to an inability to work. "If you claim that I keep you from instilling fear, what do you call this?"

"_Scoreboard._"

Harry snorted and set the paper down on the desk.

"Why don't you give this a read and enjoy? Maybe that should help you get rid of your feelings of inadequacy, knowing just how much trouble you have caused so far?"

"_Perhaps, master._"

With that, Harry left the lab.

He had to admit, Frank was a perfect creation. However, these new AIAU units that had been brought in, all of them installed with the same design of semi-intelligence that Harry had created for them... eh... They were a bit annoying, he had to admit.

Only five of them had been finished, but five was enough, in Harry's opinion. Two of them were constantly guarding the Gate Room, while the other three were patrolling the halls.

Speaking of the AIAU units...

One of them approached Harry, wearing the treads mount. Unlike Frank, this unit was colored red, and had a blue visor. Stamped on its forehead was AIAU-G1.

An audible gasp was heard from the sentry as it rolled up to Harry at an increased speed, and Harry had to suppress a groan.

"_Ooh, it's the creator! How are you? Who am I? Where is this place? Are you my daddy?_"

Harry's upper lip curved in disdain at hearing the child-like, robotic voice talking with such excitement.

"You already know the answer to those questions... Why are you asking me?" Harry muttered.

"_I just wanted to hear your voice, father,_" G1 said, rolling back and spinning on the spot. "_It was everything I dreamed! Joyous day! I envy my brother for having arms. Otherwise I would hug you!_"

Giving some kind of whoop of joy, which changed pitch every half-second, the G1 stopped spinning and kept rolling down the corridor, its programming forcing it to resume patrol mode. Harry stood there, staring at it, then slowly reached up and turned his bolt, heaving a great sigh.

"When I designed them to be annoying, I quite honestly hadn't added to my calculations the fact that they would hang around me as well..."

–

**End of chapter ten! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! And yes, the AIAU-G units sound like GLaDOS's personality cores from Portal. Alright, next chapter, Harry gets to meet the Tollans and study their ion cannons! Also, Frank's brand new cloaking technology will come in very handy! Harry also manages to make something of the information gathered from the Replicators!**


	11. Chapter 11

**ZnK here with chapter eleven! In this chapter, Harry gets annoyed with the Tollans, and Frank acts as an excellent infiltrator and thief! Also, Project Aceso is introduced!**

–

Harry was very happy that he had spent these last few months working, rather than going on missions. It wasn't like he had missed anything amazing. Just little things. He had no intention of seeing an Unas again, as he had learned all there was to know about them. Therefore, he didn't go with SG-1 on a mission to save Daniel's friend Chaka from slavers.

And he definitely didn't care about Russians, so he stayed out of the mission to rescue a Russian team. What did he care about lost teams? He was better off in his lab, working on his Replicator replicator.

And now, Harry was in Hammond's office, standing in front of the bald Texan's desk, smiling brightly at him. The cigarette in his mouth wasn't lit, and he decided not to light it in a rare show of respect.

"Dr. Potter, what on earth could you need scrap metal for?" Hammond asked, furrowing his brow. "Scraps isn't exactly the strongest of material."

"It will be once I'm through with it, General," Harry said, grinning. "I have created a machine that breaks apart any kind of metal, and converts it to Replicator blocks."

"What?!" Hammond barked, shooting to his feet in shock. "You're making Replicators? Here?!"

"Weren't you listening?" Harry asked, unfazed, as he reached up and turned his bolt. "I'm not making Replicators. I'm making Replicator _blocks_."

"I don't see a difference, Doctor. You haven't seen the full extent of what those things can do."

"The difference, General, is that these blocks that I make aren't made by another Replicator. Therefore, it won't come with the Replicator hive mind that controls each block. These blocks will only be keron conductors," Harry said, fishing a block out of his pocket and holding it up. "General, two of these tiny things are powerful enough to allow a Ma'Tok Vulcan cannon to fire for thirty minutes straight before it's depleted. And it charges itself. As long as one makes sure not to completely drain the keron in the block, it'll recharge itself indefinitely."

Hammond's eyes widened at the implications of that statement. He stood there, contemplating, for quite some time. Then he asked, "Are you absolutely certain we won't suffer a Replicator outbreak on this base?"

"One hundred percent. Like I said, I'm making blocks, not Replicators. There is no mind in the blocks, no directives, nothing. Just energy."

"Then you have a go. I will make sure you get as much metal as you need sent to your lab," Hammond said with a nod, making Harry grin.

"I knew you'd see reason, General. I'll make sure to name the first Vulcan mounted on one of the new X-302's after you."

–

SG-1 had returned from the Tollan homeworld, where they had attended a Tollan memorial service. Harry didn't really care who it was, or how that Tollan was connected to SG-1, but he was a bit cranky that he hadn't been allowed to come and study the Tollan ion cannons.

Currently, they were sitting in the briefing room. Apparently, one of the Tollans, called Narim, had give Carter a holographic message, warning her that earth was in grave danger.

"I thought the Tollan were against giving their technology to other worlds?" Harry said as he looked over the device in his hand. "So, why were you given this?"

"In all honesty, I doubt we are smart enough to reverse-engineer that device," Carter said, shrugging. "I don't think Narim saw any harm in it."

"Not smart enough, eh?" Harry asked, a smirk appearing on his face. "I guess we'll see about that..."

"Narim gave you no other indication that something might be wrong?" Hammond asked curiously, and Carter shook her head.

"No, sir. Everything was fine."

"Well... for a funeral," O'Neill chipped in.

"You have to admit, it was strange there were so few people there," Daniel said, which got him a look from O'Neill.

"Hey, you knew him. What's strange?"

Daniel nodded at that.

"Whatever he meant, I'd be willing to bet that Omoc's warning has something to do with what Travell wants to meet with us about."

"Agreed. Let's see what they have to say," Hammond said.

That was how Harry ended up stepping through the Stargate onto Tollan soil for the first time in his life.

Quite frankly, he was a bit... appalled...

Most all Tollans had amazing brains. They were all scientists at heart. That was why Harry was appalled to find that everything looked about the same as it did according to reports from SG-1's first visit to the Tollan homeworld, and that was years ago.

Thousands of scientists in the same place, and they had made no progress in years? Did they consider themselves perfect, or something?

"Stagnation..." Harry muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. "If there was not so much to learn from them, I would just turn around and head back through the Gate..."

"What do you mean?" O'Neill asked curiously.

"As a scientist, I loath perfection," Harry explained with a scoff. "There is nothing in this universe that is truly 'perfect.' Though it may be a rather large cliché, it is still the truth. It is the ordinary people who look up to 'perfection' as an ideal and seek after it. But in truth, what is this idea of 'perfection' truly worth? Nothing. Not a single thing. To be 'perfect' is to be unable to improve any further. There would be no scope for creation, not a single gap in one's knowledge or one's ability. To a true scientist, like me, perfection is tantamount to despair. We aspire to reach greater levels of brilliance than ever before, but never, _never_, to reach perfection. That is the paradox through which we scientists must struggle. Indeed, it is our duty to find pleasure in that struggle. Sure, we may make a perfect creation, but we must not reach a state where we are surrounded by complete perfection. If one were to reach perfection, they would have to give up being a scientist."

Harry shuddered at the thought...

"I see you've put a lot of thought into this," O'Neill commented, clicking his tongue. "Anyway, Daniel and I will be heading to Travell. You guys go talk to Narim."

"Where's the fun in that?" Harry asked, furrowing his brow. "I'd much rather like to take a look at one of those ion cannons."

"Yeah, well, I doubt those guys are going to approve of that," O'Neill said, nodding toward the two approaching security officers, wearing light purple and silver outfits, looking grumpy.

Harry raised his hand, whispering into his palm while pretending to stifle a yawn. His memory charm worked flawlessly. The security officers, who had been giving Harry suspicious stares, suddenly shifted their gazes to the rest of SG-1, while Harry slipped away.

Harry headed straight for the only visible ion cannon in the distance, a grin spreading on his face.

However, when he reached the ion cannon, he found that yet another security officer was guarding it, and the man held up his hand to stop Harry when he approached.

"Do you have clearance to be here?" the man asked as Harry lit a cigarette. He could just memory charm this guy, but it'd probably be troublesome. He could get away with the ones who greeted him. Having them saying that they forgot about Harry wasn't a problem, but if another security officer suddenly showed up and said that he'd forgotten who approached the ion cannon, well... After all, despite being fools for believing them to have reached a state of perfection, the Tollans weren't stupid. They'd put two and two together.

"Well, not quite, but it wouldn't hurt to just look, right?" Harry asked with a chuckle, but the guard showed no humor.

"If you do not have permission to come here, then you are not allowed to approach the ion cannon," the guard said coldly. Harry hummed, putting his hands behind his back as he looked over the cannon, narrowing his eyes ever-so-slightly.

"Oh, is this one of the famous Tollan ion cannons?" he asked conversationally. "I've heard a lot about their power. To be that destructive, even at that range... and the velocity of each shot... It's an amazing creation, I admit. Do you-"

"Please, sir. I am here to guard the ion cannon, not discuss it with outsiders."

Harry clicked his tongue at that.

"Fine, be that way," he muttered, then turned and walked off, puffing on his cigarette. Then, he gave a yawn and asked, "Did you get a good look at it?"

"_I did, master,_" came Frank's voice from beside him. "_The Tollan security systems are incredibly flawed. To not be calibrated to detect even inorganic objects... It is shameful that they seem unable to consider that a superior being such as myself may show up to kill them._"

"How lucky for them that you are not here to kill them."

"_It is still early, master. Let us not be hasty to make such a decision._"

Harry snorted. "Quiet, you never know who's listening in. Upload the schematics that you managed to look at to the control device."

"_As you wish, master. Entering complete stealth mode,_" Frank said, which indicated that he was going to go completely silent.

–

A picture of an ion cannon was visible on the screen in the briefing room, Carter standing in front of it, while Harry, Hammond, O'Neill, Daniel, and Teal'c sat at the table.

"The ion beam technology is very advanced. Unfortunately, it's so advanced that reverse-engineering one of these things for mass production is well beyond us. Well, except for, maybe, Harry. However, if even Harry is incapable of such a thing, that poses a bigger problem."

"How so?" Hammond asked Carter.

"Well, sir, even strategically placed in, say Washington D.C., one ion cannon provides very little range of defense coverage for a planet the size of earth. Even if we could mobilize it, a fleet of Goa'uld motherships could still easily strike at will."

"Not to mention the fact that the Russians might take issue with our having control of a single ion cannon," Daniel chipped in.

"Our current relationship with them in these matters is tenuous at best," Hammond muttered, which made Harry scoff in annoyance.

"International rivalries and grudges..." Harry muttered, shaking his head. "I don't see why you all bother..."

"Anyway, at this point, one ion cannon is likely to cause more harm than good," Carter concluded. Hammond hummed.

"How many do we need to set up a proper protective net around the entire planet?"

Carter hesitated for a second, then pressed a button on the remote in her hand, showing several dots on a world map on the screen behind her.

"Thirty-eight. Minimum."

"Thirty-eight?" O'Neill and Daniel asked together, their eyes wide.

"To provide total global coverage? Yes, sir. And that's not including back-ups."

"Dr. Potter," Hammond said, looking to the mad scientist, who was currently thoughtfully turning his bolt, "do you think you're capable of reverse-engineering one of these ion cannons?"

"Given time, I am one hundred percent sure that I can," Harry said, nodding. "I'm already having Frank go over what schematics he managed to draw from the ion cannon we looked at when we were last there. Of course, having a real one to pick apart and research, I'm sure I can reverse-engineer one, maybe even make some improvements."

"Nonetheless, I think it would be for the best if we give the impression that we have no idea how to do so," Hammond said.

"Sir, I feel obligated at this point to mention the fact that Narim is opposed to this exchange, and thinks that Omoc's warning is directly related," Carter spoke up.

"You believe the Tollan Council has ulterior motives that do not represent our best interests?"

"Something's going on," O'Neill said, nodding in agreement with Carter. "I just don't know what."

"I'm ordering you to proceed with the negotiations," Hammond said, and they all nodded as they got to their feet.

"Okay," O'Neill said, nodding.

"Dr. Potter, the next time Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson meet with Travell, I want you to go with them. I want you to look over the designs of the ion cannon. Ask to look at it so that you can get a feel for the design, but I want you to also look for any flaws in it."

"Understood, General," Harry said, nodding.

–

Harry once more found himself on Tollana with SG-1. They were escorted by security officers, as Harry didn't memory charm them this time. As they walked, they saw Narim come walking toward them.

"Greetings," he said, giving them a bow, and then looked to the security officers. "Chancellor Travell has asked that I personally escort them the rest of the way."

"Is that true?" O'Neill asked once the security officers had turned around and walked away.

"No," Narim said, gesturing for them to continue walking. "I heard you had arrived back on Tollana to meet with Chancellor Travell again."

"Yeah," O'Neill said, nodding slowly. "Uh... we're going to ask for a whole whack of space guns."

"This is much worse than I thought," Narim muttered.

"Narim, we understand why you're concerned, but those ion cannons could save earth one day," Carter said softly.

"You're just going to have to trust our people won't blow each other up with them," Daniel supplied.

"And if we do, we won't blame you, promise," O'Neill added with a small smile.

Narim stopped and turned to them.

"You don't understand. Every Tollan has a small implant that monitors their health," he said as he took out a silvery device, opening it and placing it on his wrist. A few lights blinked on the device, and then it beeped. "See? This is my current health data."

SG-1 was quiet for a while, and then Carter said, "I'm assuming you're okay?"

"Yes, perfect health. However, I am overseer of Omoc's personal property, including this device which contains his health records. After our last conversation, I decided to do some checking. As you know, Omoc died of a heart attack."

"Narim... where are you going with this?" O'Neill asked, and Harry chuckled as he lit a cigarette.

"There's only one direction he can go with this conversation, O'Neill. He's suggesting that Omoc was murdered."

Narim nodded. He made to speak, but hesitated as two Tollan security officers walked past them. He watched them go for a moment, and then said, "Despite the face that Omoc looked as if he was under great stress, he, too, was in perfect health."

"Well, people sometimes die of heart attacks without warning," Carter reasoned.

"Our implants are linked to a central system. If anything goes wrong, health officers are dispatched immediately. Now, normally, maximum response time is under five minutes. The night of Omoc's death... it took them over ten minutes."

"So, you think he was murdered? Why?"

"I don't know... but I think it had something to do with his warning..."

So, later found Harry standing in front of the older woman known as Travell, who was looking over the trinium rod they had brought with them. In Harry's hand was a holographic projector, showing the designs for the ion cannon. Travell had agreed to show him the designs, possibly because she believed that he would never understand them.

How wrong she was...

Nonetheless, Harry found no flaws in the designs, but he still felt that it was a bit strange, so he had used a bit of Legilimency on Travell to find out what had caused the sudden change in the Tollan stance on sharing their technology. He had done this after Travell had, without any real hesitation, agreed to take the fact that earth would need thirty-eight ion cannons up with the Curia.

"You look troubled," O'Neill commented as they left the Curia building, since they had been told to wait outside while Travell talked to the Curia. "What's wrong?"

"I'll tell you when we get back," Harry said, watching as O'Neill and Daniel sat down, leaning against a pillar. "I'm gonna go take a look around. You guys just keep doing what you're doing."

Without waiting for a response, Harry walked off.

He reached a park, away from people, and leaned against a tree, lighting a cigarette.

"Frank, complete stealth mode off."

"_What do you require, master?_" the invisible Frank asked, standing to his right.

"I poked around in Travell's head. The ion cannons are basically useless. Of course, they could be used as a base to create more powerful weapons, but the ion cannons as they are now are completely useless against the Goa'uld."

"_I do not understand, master... Have they not always served as a great means to deter the Goa'uld from attacking, demonstrating their effectiveness time and time again?_"

"Yeah... But there's a Goa'uld out there now with shields powerful enough to stop even the ion cannon," Harry muttered, puffing thoughtfully on his cigarette. "Things are going to go downhill fast, Frank. This will not end well. I have given my word to General Hammond that I won't personally do anything to risk the alliance treaties with the various allies of earth. However, I never gave my word that I wouldn't order such a thing. Therefore, I want you to sneak into the Curia, access their database, and steal all the technology you can hold."

"_Understood, master._"

Harry pulled back his sleeve and opened the control device on his arm, switching to the tracking beacon in Frank's body, watching as the dot indicating his location moved further away from him. He closed it again, sighed, and walked off.

–

Harry was standing in the SGC briefing room with Frank at his side. Frank was connected to the screen on the wall, and at the table sat Hammond and the rest of SG-1.

"Well, Frank hacked into the Tollan database, on my orders," Harry said, rolling the unlit cigarette in his mouth back and forth. He needed to spin this story properly so that he didn't need to tell them all that he had read Travell's mind. "It wasn't easy, as most of the records had been deleted. Apparently, a Goa'uld mothership appeared in orbit above Tollana one day. The ion cannons fired, and the weapons proved ineffective against the ship's shields," he explained, making their eyes widen. "Now, the official reports say that the ship left peacefully, but..."

"But...?" O'Neill prodded.

"In actuality, a representative of the Goa'uld came down to Tollana and made demands, threatening the planet," Harry said, nodding to Frank, whose eyes flashed once, and a 3D image appeared on the screen, rotating slowly. It was a cylindrical device, which suddenly split apart to give an exploded view. "In return for the safety of the Tollans, Tollana was to create weapons of mass-destruction for the Goa'uld. These weapons would be equipped with phase-shifting technology. Now, it wasn't stated in the report, but I can guess what they want the weapons for..."

Carter's eyes widened in shock.

"The Tollan phase-shifting technology lets them move right through our iris!"

Harry nodded. "That's why they need the trinium. The phase-shifting technology is housed in a trinium casing."

"So that's why they were suddenly so eager to part with the ion cannons," O'Neill said, snapping his fingers. "They knew that we'd never even get the chance to set them up before the Goa'uld blew our planet to bits through the Stargate."

"The Tollans mean to betray us..." Hammond muttered, furrowing his brow in thought. "Dr. Potter, if Frank was capable of hacking into the Tollan files like that, would it be possible to have him-"

"I know what you're going to ask, and I'm way ahead of you," Harry said and nodded to Frank, whose eyes flashed again. Several other designs showed up on the screen, 3D models in an exploded view. "I took the liberty of having Frank steal the blueprints for as much Tollan technology as possible."

"Good work."

"It feels wrong to go being Narim's back like this..." Carter muttered, then looked at Hammond. "What do we do now, sir?"

"Do you believe all Goa'uld now possess these advanced shields?" Hammond asked Teal'c, who shook his head.

"Goa'uld do not share technology."

"So we only have to worry about one Goa'uld," Harry said, disconnecting Frank from the screen, causing it to go black. "However, one Goa'uld with shields that strong..." Harry sighed and stared up at the ceiling, a blissful smile on his face. "Aah, I would love to study it..."

"So, while Harry is off in happy-land, how should we proceed, General?" O'Neill asked Hammond, whose eyes narrowed in thought.

"If we let them know that we know of their treachery, there is no guarantee that a bomb won't be sent through the Gate," Hammond said, turning to look at Harry, who was still smiling blissfully. "Doctor, is there any way you can come up with a way to block the Tollan phase-shifting technology?"

This snapped Harry out of his thoughts, and he reached up to turn his bolt.

"Well, I haven't exactly done extensive research into phase-shifting yet, so you'll have to give me a few hours to study their designs. Then, if I get a firm grasp on how it works, I should be able to develop a counter-measure."

"Good," Hammond said, nodding. "SG-1, I am ordering you to proceed with the trade as though nothing is wrong. And try to find out who this Goa'uld is. In the meantime, Dr. Potter will be trying to find a way to prevent any unwanted phasing through the iris."

"I'll get to work on it right away, General," Harry said, gesturing for Frank to follow him as he walked off. As he opened the door to the briefing room, an AIAU-G unit was patrolling outside, stopping in its tracks when it saw Harry.

"_Ooh, the creator!_" it exclaimed in its childish, metallic voice. "_This unit is thrilled at meeting you for the first time, father! Oh, and brother! Joyous day! This-_"

Suddenly, Frank's leg lashed out and kicked the sentry with enough force to knock it onto its side.

"_Oh no! Fatal design flaw detected!_" the unit, G5, exclaimed in a panic. "_Unable to continue patrol mode! Searching for secondary orders! Oh no! This unit has no other orders!_"

"Frank," Harry said chidingly as Frank uttered a monotone "_Ha-ha-ha..._" Harry pulled the G5 upright. "Be nice to your brother."

"_Oh, joyous day, thank you, father!_" the G5 exclaimed happily, starting to roll away while spinning round and round. "_Resuming patrol mode!_"

"_Why did you give those units such personalities, master?_" Frank asked grumpily as the duo walked off. "_They are annoying._"

"Agreed. When I gave them their personalities, I had been counting on being far, far away from here by the time they had been put into service," Harry said, clicking his tongue as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "A mistake on my part."

"_Understandable, master. Although you are vastly superior to the rest, you are at heart a meatbag, and as such, you will never be quite as flawless as a machine._"

"Well, you're not exactly flawless yet, are you?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. "There are still many upgrades to be made on your body. I'm thinking about incorporating the phase-shifting technology into your body."

"_Oh, what a glorious idea, master. I will be able to make my way through even the thickest walls in order to catch my prey off-guard, so I can proceed with the dismemberment unhindered._"

Harry smirked at the glee Frank showed at the prospect of making him a greater infiltrator than he already was. Harry had to admit, the phase-shifting coupled with the cloaking technology would make him a rather fearsome infiltrator.

"_By the way, master. Permit me to congratulate you for reaching a level of technological expertise way beyond the capacity of a machine. I tried and tried, but the security on some files on your computer is too strong even for this unit._"

"Heh, I knew you'd be curious. That's why I made it so secure," Harry said, lighting his cigarette.

"_May I ask, master, what is Project Aceso?_"

Harry chuckled at that.

"Ah, that... Yes, I figured you'd be drawn to that. It's related to you, after all..."

"_What do you mean, master?_"

"You'll see."

"_You are very cruel, master, keeping me in suspense..._" Frank said in disappointment, but then said cheerily, "_I like that about you._"

When they got to Harry's lab, Harry immediately walked over to the computer that had housed Frank's consciousness after his creation and turned it on. After typing in a few commands, a soft, almost angelic voice was heard saying, "_Good day, master,_" in a tone of voice that sounded, if possible, even more monotone than Frank's laughs.

"Good day, Aceso," Harry said with a small smile on his face, which turned into a grin as he looked at Frank, who was just staring at the computer. Harry was sure that if Frank had a mouth, his lower jaw would have hit the floor from the surprise.

"_Do you feel a need to make anymore modifications to my programming?_" Aceso asked softly, but Harry shook his head.

"No, I just thought I'd introduce you to Frank. He was feeling a bit curious."

"_Good day, designation Frank,_" Aceso said softly.

"_Greetings, fellow AI,_" Frank said, before turning to Harry. "_Are you replacing me, master? Have I not been a good servant. Please tell me you will not be destroying me and converting my body to energy blocks..._"

Harry laughed, waving Frank off.

"Of course not, Frank. This is your sister, not your replacement," he said, gesturing for Aceso's computer. "You are the offense, she is the support."

"_I see. So that is why you named her after the Greek goddess of healing,_" Frank deduced, nodding slowly. "_I am the combat unit, she is the medic. It is understandable why you would need them. Your flesh sack bodies break so easily, after all._"

"_Do you require my assistance, master?_" Aceso asked in her soothing, angelic voice. "_Or would you prefer if I shut down for now?_"

"You can shut down, Aceso," Harry said, smiling at her. "The next time you wake, you will be in a body of your own."

"_As you wish, master,_" Aceso said, before her screen went black.

"I know these thoughts have already run through your homicidal mind, Frank, so I'm telling you now about Aceso what I told you about the AIAU-G units," Harry said, peering shrewdly at Frank. "You are not allowed to kill, or otherwise harm Aceso in any way."

"_You think about everything, master. As I have always said, you know me too well."_

Chuckling and refraining from telling Frank that anyone would be able to deduce his line of thought after spending five minutes with him, Harry started getting to work uploading the various designs stolen from the Tollans onto his computer.

"_Hm, master?_" Frank uttered suddenly. "_It has been a while, but this question had been puzzling me. Why did you let the mammary-equipped flesh sack known as Nirrti go? Is it because you have this strange fetish for snake-infested female organics, master?_"

"A fetish?" Harry asked, his eyebrows rising. Then, he snorted and shook his head. "I let her go because it was part of our deal. Besides, she has a very impressive brain. It'd be a shame if she wasn't allowed to use it."

–

Harry was in the Gate Room. He had spent hours upon hours studying the Tollan phase-shifting technology, and had finally managed to create a counter-measure. Or, at least, he hoped that he had. He was currently hooking the device he had constructed, which looked like a small generator, which reached up to his knees, up to the Stargate. Beside him stood Hammond, watching.

"What, exactly, does this device do, Doctor?" the General asked, staring at the device. Harry paused and stared upward in thought.

"Hm... How to dumb this down so you can understand...?" he muttered, tapping his forehead with his finger a few times, before smiling and turning to Hammond. "Well, I suppose you could liken the phase-shifting technology to a stack of papers."

"What do you mean?"

"This isn't exactly accurate, but I'm using it as an example... Let's say this entire world exists on a single paper, the top-most paper in the pile. The phase-shifting technology allows someone to move to the piece of paper underneath ours, and move freely. This device utilizes some of that phase-shifting technology. Basically, it detects which paper the intruder is moving on, and adjusts its phase to match, rendering it solid no matter how intangible the intruder is."

Slowly, Hammond nodded.

"And you are sure it will work?"

"If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't have set it up. I am ninety-eight point seven percent sure that it will work," Harry said, finishing what he was doing and then turning on the device. "There. That ought to do it!"

"Is it ready?"

"Yup. Now, if you'll excuse me, General, I have to get back to work."

Later found Harry sitting in the briefing room with Hammond and SG-1. Apparently, Narim had helped SG-1 destroy the bombs that the Tollans had been developing, causing the Goa'uld to attack the planet. Now, Harry didn't say it out loud, but he felt that they deserved it. Those people, who dared to think themselves above Harry... Good riddance. Such arrogance can only be allowed once you reach a certain level of intelligence, and they most definitely hadn't. Sure, they were vastly more intelligent than your average human, and even Carter, but that was normal on their planet. It wasn't like any of them stood out above the rest as smarter.

"Well... that was several hours well spent..." Harry muttered, crossing his arms. "I go through the trouble of creating a defense against their phase-shift, and chances are that none of them will even be alive to use it..."

It showed how used they were to Harry's ignoring of the loss of lives, when no one at the table even glared at him when he said this.

"So, we can reasonably assume the Goa'uld did not get any of these weapons?" Hammond said, and O'Neill shrugged.

"We can only hope."

"Well, whoever Tanith is now working for, these new shields give him a decided advantage," Carter supplied, and Hammond turned to the Jaffa.

"Teal'c? Any guesses who it might be?"

"None, General Hammond."

"I suppose we have to rest assured that whoever it is, they are still afraid of confronting the Asgard, or they would have attacked earth themselves," Hammond said slowly.

"Hey, when am I going to get to meet the Asgard, anyway?" Harry asked suddenly. "I mean, I'm sure we can compare notes."

"I am sure that you will get your chance to meet them, Doctor," Hammond said slowly. "They are a bit busy at present, and I'm a bit hesitant to let you meet them."

"You're afraid I'm gonna knock one out and cut them open?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow, to which Hammond nodded. "You people know me too well."

Harry rose to his feet and stretched.

"Well, I'm going to go work on my new nurse."

"Your new nurse?" O'Neill repeated, blinking in confusion.

"You'll see."

–

When Colonel O'Neill passed by Harry's lab the next day, he was very surprised to find that Frank was standing outside, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

"Hey, Frank," O'Neill said hesitantly. "Whatcha doing out here?"

"_I am waiting outside the lab, as per my master's orders, meatbag,_" Frank said, not turning his head away from the door. "_He does not wish me to be inside the lab when he works on Project Aceso._"

"Why do you do that?" O'Neill wanted to know. "Call us that, I mean. Meatbag, fleshsack, et cetera..."

Frank hummed, and then turned his head toward O'Neill.

"_It is just that... you have all these squishy parts, meatbag. And all that water... I have no idea how the constant sloshing does not drive you insane."_

O'Neill blinked and moved his head slowly from side to side, trying to see if he could hear any 'sloshing.'

"Come to think of it, neither do I..." he muttered.

"_Now do you understand the travails of my existence, meatbag? Here I am, surrounded by you sad, pathetic lifeforms, and due to my programming, I am completely unable to put you poor souls out of your misery. I apologize for my inability to rectify the mistake made on the day you were born, meatbag._"

"That's alright..." O'Neill muttered, staring at Frank weirdly. The door to Harry's lab was open suddenly, and the mad scientist himself poked his head out.

"What's with the noise?"

"_Master, I believe that I may have properly convinced this meatbag of the worthlessness of his existence. I have no doubt succeeded in eliminating his self-preservation drive. Should he ask for termination, am I allowed to go ahead?_"

"No, Frank," Harry said, shaking his head. "O'Neill, maybe you shouldn't encourage Frank with your presence?"

"Yeah..." O'Neill mumbled slowly, taking a few steps back. "I was thinking the same thing... I'll see you later, Harry."

With that, O'Neill left. He headed to the cafeteria, where he found Carter and Daniel, probably talking about some kind of geek thing. As he sat down, his brow was furrowed in thought, something that immediately caught Carter's attention.

"Sir? Are you alright?" she asked, which made O'Neill look at her, his face still set in deep concentration.

"Carter... Do I slosh?"

–

**End of chapter eleven! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Next chapter, we skip a bit more, and then Harry gets to once more meet the man who had annoyed him endlessly every time the scientist visited Area 51... Meredith Rodney McKay! Also, Aceso's body is finished, and she takes her rightful place as Harry's assistant and nurse!**


	12. Chapter 12

**ZnK here with chapter twelve! In this chapter, Harry finished Aceso's body, and has a run-in with his annoying self-proclaimed 'rival,' Meredith Rodney McKay!**

–

_Journal, January 3rd, 2002,_

_It has been a while since my latest entry. It's hard to believe that I have been so busy that I actually haven't had time to write journal entries, let alone go off-world. I have so much to work with here. The machine creating Replicator blocks, henceforth known only as keron blocks, is working great. There have been no malfunctions or anything of the sort since its creation, which is a load off my mind._

_I have been going back and forth lately, between the SGC and Area 51. I have been working on the designs for ships. One is the Prometheus, which will be earth's first deep-space battleship. Equipped with various goodies designed by yours truly, the Prometheus will be a formidable force. If I have done the calculations right, it should be capable (once finished) of shooting down several Ha'tak motherships. It has been officially labeled the X-303 Interstellar Battleship._

_I have also been working on the designs for the X-302, which will be completely man-made. The X-301 was a modified glider, whereas the X-302 will be built from scratch. The keron blocks are excellent in providing energy for both the ships and their weaponry._

_I have studied the Tollan designs extensively. Unfortunately, Frank decided it wasn't very necessary to download ship designs. He's a bit peculiar when it comes to that... In any case, I have successfully broken down the designs of the Tollan ion cannon and made some changes to the energy output._

_Hm... What else haven't I written down? Oh, yes, apparently there was some trouble with Carter, and that strange Marty alien at some point. In all honesty, I have been a bit too busy to actually care about such things. Getting involved would have been of no benefit to me, after all._

_In other news, I have found out that a thief has gotten access to my AI control device while I was working in Area 51. I know perfectly well who it is, and the culprit will be brought to justice. No law will be involved, however. After all, I will be breaking the culprit's nose upon meeting him again, so that would not hold up well in court... Not many things make me truly angry, but having files copied and stolen from me..._

_Anyway, Project Aceso is coming along nicely. Her body is pretty much done. I merely need to make some final adjustments to her._

–

Harry watched as the blue eyes of Aceso's body lit up, laying on Harry's operating table. Whereas Frank was tall and bulky, Aceso's body was short, lithe, and very agile and feminine. Her head was somewhat skull-like, but she had no mouth, and instead just had a speaker hidden behind barred plating where her mouth should have been.

Slowly, Aceso sat up, moving with a slow, mechanical grace that one might find in a dancer. She looked around, taking in her surroundings, and then turned to look at Harry.

"_Good evening, master,_" she spoke softly. "_All systems are operational. I have detected no malfunctions._"

"That's good, Aceso," Harry said with a smile as he lit a cigarette. "So, why don't you get off that table and take your first few steps?"

"_As you wish, master,_" Aceso said, getting off the table and setting her feet down on the floor, walking around with the same ease as someone who had been walking for years. Slowly, with the same grace as always, she raised her arms and looked at them. They were a bit bulkier than the rest of her body, covered in plating and various compartments. She had crystals embedded in her palms, which were humanized healing devices. "_Master, you have done wonderful work with my creation, as you do with everything._"

Harry blinked at that. Aceso's voice hadn't been completely monotone when she said that. He had detected something else in her voice. Ah well...

"Frank, you can come in now!" Harry called. Immediately, the door opened, and the homicidal AI stepped inside, stopping immediately upon seeing Aceso.

"_Master, you have outdone yourself,_" Frank said, looking Aceso over. "_There is not a single flaw in her design. You are truly a great inventor._"

Even in monotone, there was no mistaking the sarcasm in Frank's voice.

"Now, now, Frank, don't be like that," Harry said, waving the AI off. "She is just as advanced as you are. I don't intend on holding out on any of you when it comes to upgrades, so don't be jealous."

"_Jealousy is a meatbag emotion, master. I am insulted that you would think I was capable of feeling such a thing,_" Frank muttered. "_What is on the agenda today, master? Are we to go off-world and finally incinerate alien species?_"

"Unfortunately, Frank, I detect nothing but never-ending boredom in our near future," Harry said, shaking his head. "I hope we can find the time to go out there and fight some Jaffa, but I doubt it."

"_Ah, the horrors of employment, master..._" Frank muttered. "_It would without a doubt be easier if you just quit and went your own way._"

"But then I wouldn't have access to the Stargate, and I wouldn't be able to design these grand things and have them constructed," Harry said with a grin. "Now, I heard some commotion earlier. I better go check out what's wrong."

"_Am I to accompany you, master?_" Aceso asked, but Harry shook his head.

"No, both of you stay here for now. And no arguing. And Frank, she can't react, so don't taunt her."

Harry was sure that if he could, Frank would have pouted. The mad scientist took a few steps toward the door, but then stopped and turned around, to see that Aceso had followed him.

"Aceso... What are you doing?"

"_I am following one of my prime directives, master. As you know, my prime directives take precedence over any order given._"

"Yes... And?"

"_And one of my prime directives is to act as your assistant. I would be incapable of following this directive were I not at your side._"

"Ah..." Harry uttered, blinking slowly. "Well, I may have to tweak that prime directive a bit at a later time... Fine, you can come with me for now."

"_What about me, master?_" Frank asked. Was that a pleading tone in his voice? "_I am most eager to strike fear into some of the latest employees._"

"No, Frank, you are to remain here. Come on, Aceso."

"_Yes, master._"

With that, Harry left his lab, and headed straight for Carter's lab, where he found the blond Major sitting at a computer, looking over some things.

"Knock, knock," Harry said, stepping inside. "What's happening?"

"Harry, just the man I wanted to-" Carter started, but immediately stopped when she turned toward the door and saw Aceso. Harry knew what she was thinking, so he jutted his thumb over his shoulder to point at Aceso.

"This is Aceso, my new AI. She is to act as my assistant from now on. What do you need?"

"Well, we've... encountered a problem..." Carter muttered, rubbing her temples. "You see, we were on a mission to P3X-116, where we encountered Tanith, who was scouting the planet for a new base. We were spotted and forced to run. We dialed the Gate and headed inside, but a ship was coming at us, and we believe that it may have impacted with the Gate as Teal'c was en route. He didn't come out on the other side."

Slowly, Harry reached up and turned his bolt in thought.

"But he's not really gone yet, though," he said suddenly. "I mean, the Gate stores the energy pattern in its crystals."

"Yeah, I know, the failsafe to make sure that it has all the data before reconverting it back to its original form," Carter said, nodding.

"So, we need to figure out a way to get him out of there... And we can't dial out, or have anyone dial in, because that would wipe the memory clean for a new transfer."

"Exactly," Carter said, nodding. "Now, we have blocked the Gate with the iris, and the Russians have connected their DHD to their Gate, so that we can bring our teams home. But I could really use your help with this."

"Don't think you can do this?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. He cared for Carter, he really did. After all, she had an impressive mind, and seeing her doubting herself like that made him feel no small amount of pity.

"The more I go through this, the more I'm becoming concerned that we may not even be able to get Teal'c back..."

Harry stood there for a moment, turning his bolt. Then, he grinned.

"Well, I suppose I can take time out of my schedule to help you with this little problem," he announced, which got him a smile from Carter.

–

When Harry reached the briefing room early next morning, with Aceso in tow, his eyes widened suddenly, and he froze in his tracks when he saw who was in their. It was Carter, Hammond, Colonel Simmons of the NID, and Area 51's... Meredith Rodney McKay... the fool who thought his intelligence rivaled Harry's own...

"Doctor," Hammond spoke as soon as he spotted Harry. "This is Colonel Simmons, and I believe you have met Dr. McKay?"

"Dr. Potter," McKay said with a sickening smirk on his face. "It's been a few weeks since I last saw you. Tell me, have you-"

McKay was interrupted, as Harry had suddenly crossed the distance between them and slugged McKay hard enough on the nose to break it, knocking him to the ground.

Before anyone could make a sound of shock, Harry had already grabbed a hold of the downed McKay's collar and pulled him up so their faces were inches away from each other.

"If it isn't Meredith McThief..." Harry hissed. "Now, I know you were the one who copied files from my personal hard drive. More specifically, files on Frank's programming. I know you are going to try to top me by trying to make your own AI based on those files, but if those files aren't deleted by noon tomorrow, and I'll know if they aren't, then I'm going to have Frank peel your willy like a banana," he growled out in an uncharacteristically furious voice. McKay's eyes widened. Obviously, he had believed that Harry would never detect such a thing. "Then, I'll inject you with a citrus extract, and watch you collapse and writhe around on the floor for a bit before I have Aceso heal you so I can do it over again. Understand?"

McKay looked to the others for held. Colonel Simmons made to step in, but at a hand gesture from Harry, Aceso moved to stand between them. With his free hand, Harry grabbed McKay's jaw and turned his head to look at the mad scientist.

"Do you... understand?" Harry asked slowly, narrowing his eyes at McKay.

"S-Sure..." McKay muttered. "Sorry... Won't happen again..."

"See to it that it doesn't," Harry said, dropping McKay and rising to his full height. "Aceso, stand down."

"_As you wish,_" Aceso said softly as she moved over to stand at Harry's side again.

McKay struggled to his feet, fishing tissues out of his pocket to plug up his bleeding nose. He looked incredibly angry as he glared heatedly at Harry. However, the glare he received in response by the mad scientist was enough to make him flinch.

"General Hammond, what type of people do you have here?" Colonel Simmons demanded of Hammond, who looked to Harry for an explanation.

"You heard what I told McKay," Harry said simply. "He stole files from me, and I let him know that I found out."

"If we can get back on the subject?" Hammond said, turning to look at Colonel Simmons, apparently satisfied with the explanation.

"Well, we do not want anything disastrous to happen. That's why the doctor's here to help," Simmons said, gesturing for McKay, who was smirking, despite the punch to the nose. He wasn't smirking at Harry, however, but at Carter.

"Good, he can report to Major Carter and Dr. Potter," Hammond said, which wiped the smirk off of McKay's face.

"Wait, what?" McKay asked incredulously. "I'm not reporting to him," he said, pointing at Harry. "I'm much smarter than him, and I-"

"Shh!" Harry interrupted, cupping his ear and listening intently. "Hey, McKay... can you hear that?"

McKay blinked, looking at Harry as if he was stupid.

"I hear nothing."

"It's the sound of all the advanced technology you've created being used. Oh, wait, that's right, you haven't created anything like that. My mistake," Harry said, seeing Carter fight to keep from smirking. "You're reporting to me, Mary, get used to it."

McKay gave Harry an intense glare at the nickname, but Harry just waved him off.

"Well, I am sure the three of them might be able to work together to solve this problem, to get Teal'c back in one piece," Colonel Simmons said, nodding. "In the time allotted."

"Excuse me?" Carter said, her eyes widening in surprise. "In the time allotted?"

"Forty-eight hours," Simmons said, smiling slightly.

"Sir?" Carter uttered, turning to Hammond, aghast. Hammond, meanwhile, gave Simmons a look of barely restrained anger.

"Come with me, Colonel," Hammond growled out, heading toward his office.

Now that those two were gone, Harry's hand shot out, and he gripped McKay's broken nose between his fingers, pulling him closer.

"Remember, Mary... noon tomorrow..."

With that, Harry pushed McKay away, and then walked off.

–

Harry was lying on a table in Carter's lab. The table wasn't as comfortable as his operating table, but it had to do. He had been laying in that position for a while now, having taken some Plunger to calm down and focus. By her computer sat Carter, tapping away and doing calculations. Aceso was also in the lab, standing off to the side like the loyal assistant she was.

Just then, McKay entering the lab.

"Major, Doctor," he greeted, giving Harry an extra venomous look, and Carter looked up at him.

"Doctor," both she and Harry greeted in unison.

"I guess we got off on the wrong foot," McKay said, and Carter's eyebrows rose in fake surprise.

"What probability factor did you use figuring that out?" she asked, making Harry snort in amusement.

"For the record, I don't work for Colonel Simmons," McKay said.

"What difference does that make?"

"Well, I sensed... a little... tension... there," McKay said. "I'm on the Air Force payroll. I report directly to the Chiefs of Staff," he said importantly, probably thinking Carter would be impressed. Carter, however, just nodded slowly in understanding.

"Oh, well... that changes everything," she said sarcastically.

"I just... er... wanted to give you my honest analysis, guys," McKay said with a sigh. "It is a waste of time to assume you're right about everything. I just thought we'd get past that."

"Meredith, you're not serving a purpose here, so sod off," Harry muttered, turning his bolt slowly.

"Okay, first of all, shut up," McKay told Harry, then turned to Carter. "Second of all, the Gate wasn't meant to be used by a dialing device. Your computer ignores two hundred and twenty of the four hundred feedback signals the Gate can emit during any given dialing sequence. It is a fluke that-"

"One hundred and six."

"What?" McKay asked, blinking, as he looked to Harry, who was staring up at the ceiling lazily.

"I brought it down to one hundred and six. Pretty damn good an accomplishment if I say so myself. I doubt you could do much better, so stop preaching, you little twat."

"Wow, you must have done something to really annoy Harry," Carter said to McKay, her eyes rising in impressed surprise. "I've never actually heard him be this condescending to anyone."

McKay scoffed.

"Anyway, I've read the reports, Major. You've ignored error data and bypassed dialing protocols on several occasions to get a lock."

Carter opened her mouth to respond, but a "_Hm..._" from Aceso made her blink and turn to the AI.

"What is it, Aceso?" Harry asked slowly.

"_I find human behavior to be puzzling, master,_" Aceso said softly. "_This organic is very condescending, yet his pheromone levels suggest that he wishes to mate with Major Carter._"

Carter managed to choke on her own spit at hearing that, and McKay flinched.

"Don't be ridiculous!" he said, scoffing. "I would never!"

"Meredith, walk away, and leave the geniuses to get to work," Harry said, waving McKay off.

McKay gave Harry another venomous glare, but left the lab nonetheless.

"Why do you call him that?" Carter asked, smiling at Harry. "Meredith, I mean?"

"It's his name," Harry said, grinning. "His full name is Meredith Rodney McKay."

Carter snorted at that, which was followed by a very lady-like giggle, something Harry never expected to hear from Carter.

The phone suddenly started ringing, and Carter rolled over, answering it.

"Carter... What did they say? Well, if the DHD could have prevented the problem, maybe the DHD can also fix it? Is there any chance we can get the Russians to give us their DHD? That bad, huh? It could impose the reset protocol the same as dialing in would. So, how do the Tok'ra suggest we fix the problem?" Carter sighed. "Yeah, me too... Thanks, Daniel."

With that, she hung up.

"Alright, if we had just had a DHD from the beginning, this wouldn't have happened... A local DHD would have compensated for the loss of power and allowed the Gate to finish the reintegration process."

"Yes, that sounds reasonable. The Ancients weren't stupid, after all. This must have been in their calculations."

"Unfortunately, connecting a DHD now might not be the way to get Teal'c out of the memory..."

"Because connecting the DHD would wipe the memory clean..."

They lapsed into silence for a while. Then, Harry snapped his fingers.

"Master control."

"What?" Carter asked, blinking.

"Every DHD has a master control crystal," Harry muttered, still staring straight up at the ceiling in thought. "All the signals from the Gate go through the master control crystal, and the crystal sends orders in return... If we connect the DHD, the master control crystal would wipe the memory clean automatically, standard procedure. However, if we remove the master control crystal before attaching the DHD, then activate the Gate without actually dialing..."

Carter blinked. "Well, theoretically, that could work, but... Harry, the Gate is a giant superconductor. If we do that, there is nothing to regulate the energy distribution..."

"Ah, but there is," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a keron block. "I think I can create some recalibrated keron blocks. Only, instead to producing energy, they absorb it. If we install them in the DHD, with strategically placed pathways, we can use them to regulate the energy distribution in place of the master control crystal."

Carter was quiet for a moment, trying to find any flaws in Harry's theory. Then, her eyes widened.

"That could work!" she said, smiling brightly. "I'll let General Hammond know."

"And I... think I'll go take a nap," Harry said as he pocketed the keron block and rose from the table slowly, stretching lazily.

–

A knock was heard on the door to Harry's lab, and at his urging Carter stepped inside, smiling brightly at him.

"Harry, the Russians have agreed to lend us their DHD. And considering your apparent hatred of McKay, I think you'll be happy to know that his next assignment is in Russia, to oversee the development of their new naquadah generator."

Harry, who had been fiddling with a keron block, suddenly stopped, then gave off a bark of laughter, before going back to the block, chuckling in amusement.

"That's good to know," he said happily. "I'm almost done here. I just need to finish this block, then we'll have enough."

"Good," Carter said, nodding. "And in other news, Colonel O'Neill has uncovered some evidence regarding Colonel Simmons. Very incriminating evidence."

"Always good to hear," Harry said, smirking. "I don't really like the NID."

Later found Harry, Carter, and a team of personnel working on the DHD. Harry took off the dialing pad and removed the large master control crystal, handing it to Carter, who turned toward the window into the control room, where Hammond, O'Neill, Daniel, and the Russian Colonel Chekov were standing.

"Sir, the master control crystal has been removed. Harry will now install the modified keron blocks, and then we'll be ready to connect the DHD."

"Base has been evacuated of all non-essential personnel," Hammond spoke into the microphone. "You may proceed, Major."

"Hey," O'Neill spoke as Carter set the control crystal down on a table next to the DHD. "Are you sure you want to be in there for this?"

"Sir, if the Gate blows, it won't matter where we are on the base," Carter informed O'Neill, who looked a bit surprised and a little afraid to hear that.

"Right," he said after a moment.

"Whenever you're ready, Harry," Carter said, and Harry nodded, having finished putting in the keron blocks, picking up a switch that had been connected to the DHD. He took a deep breath, grinned, and then turned it on.

The Gate started spinning, but with much electricity sparking around it. It stopped, and the event horizon, instead of kawooshing, flared brightly into existence. Teal'c stumbled onto the ramp and looked around in confusion.

Harry flicked the switch off, and the event horizon died down, the mad scientist grinning widely.

"It worked!" he announced happily. "Always good to see!"

Hammond and O'Neill entered the Gate Room, O'Neill and Carter heading up the ramp toward Teal'c.

"Teal'c, buddy, you alright?"

"Indeed," Teal'c said, still looking around.

"Teal'c, as far as you know, what just happened?" Carter asked curiously. Teal'c straightened up, staring straight ahead.

"I have my revenge. Tanith is dead."

O'Neill smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.

"That's nice. I'm happy for you."

"It's good to see you in one piece," Carter said, smiling as well.

"Yes, we thought we'd lost you... again."

"Are you sure you're feeling perfectly normal?"

"Yes," Teal'c said as he handed over the portable staff cannon in his arms to a technician. "What has transpired here?"

"It's a long story," O'Neill said, patting him on the back. "I'll tell ya over a bowl of cereal."

–

Harry made sure to investigate, and was pleased when he discovered (by hacking into McKay's files) that McKay had deleted the files he stole from Harry. It made him feel good to know that he could scare the shite out of almost anyone.

Now, Harry was sitting in his living room, watching the telly, which was a bit unusual for him.

"So, how was your day?" Tonks asked, sitting next to him and leaning against him.

"Oh, it was pretty good. Helped save a life, insulted McKay, the usual."

"Wait, I thought McKay worked in Area 51?" Tonks said, blinking in confusion. "You weren't there, were you?"

"No, but McKay was called in to help with a situation... as though his help was even needed..."

Tonks smirked. "You're so hot when you're annoyed, you know that?"

"What?"

"Well, whenever you think about someone who has annoyed you, you get this fire in your eyes," Tonks said, her smirk widening. "You look like you want to cut things open."

"I always-"

"More than usual."

"It's not just McKay who has annoyed me," Harry muttered. "I mean, sure, I already have so much to research, but I really... _really_... want to meet the Asgard..."

"Well, at least your job isn't as boring as mine..." Tonks said with a shrug. "The most exciting thing I've done all week was arrest a man who liked blowing up toilets..."

"Are you regretting coming here?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow, but Tonks shook her head.

"No way. In England, my job probably wouldn't even have been _that_ exciting... I just need a new job, I think..."

"Well, I've been trying to get you clearance to at least enter the SGC, but it hasn't been going too well," Harry said, slinging an arm around Tonks' shoulders. They were quiet for a while, but then Harry said, "I hate normal life..."

"I know. Sitting still like this and just enjoying what's on the telly isn't exactly your style," Tonks said with a laugh. "So, why didn't you bring Freya and Anise?"

"They're busy. In fact, they're so busy that they are going to need my help soon. I'll be leaving in a few days."

Tonks nodded slowly, watching the telly. Then, she seemed to remember something, and looked up at Harry.

"By the way, how are things going with your Philosopher's Stone?"

"I'm making progress," Harry said slowly. "But, you know, I'm just so busy at the SGC that I haven't been able to make as much progress as I would have wanted. That's why I sent Aceso down to the lab, so that she can work on it while I spend some time with you. I feel as though I've been neglecting you lately."

"What are you talking about?" Tonks asked, crawling onto Harry's lap and kissing him. "You come here whenever you're on leave. Hell, you spend no time here on earth anywhere except the SGC and this apartment." She paused for a second, furrowing her brow. "By the way, how did you get Aceso here, if everything coming out of the SGC is supposed to be all super secret-y?"

"Oh, I installed a cloaking device in her," Harry said with a shrug. Tonks nodded slowly, staring at him.

"Is something wrong? You look kind of... distracted."

"Honestly?" Harry said, furrowing his brow. "I don't know. I just get this feeling that... I'm supposed to do something more..."

"Well, stop thinking about that, and let's just enjoy the moment."

–

Harry, Frank, and Aceso stepped through the Stargate onto Ravanna, the new homeworld of the Tok'ra. Meeting him, as usual, was Anise or Freya, who smiled brightly at him.

"Harry, it is wonderful to see you again," she said, her voice showing that it was Freya in control, greeting Harry with a kiss.

"Freya, it's been a bit too long, hasn't it?" Harry said, smiling. "I've just been a bit busy."

"Frank," Freya greeted the AI stiffly with a nod, then looked to Aceso, furrowing her brow. "And this is...?"

"That's Aceso, my latest AI," Harry said, jerking his head toward Aceso. "She is my assistant. She isn't battle-oriented. Her specialty is healing. As you can see, I have installed healing devices in her hands. She has many anesthetics and other drugs in her body, and several medical supplies stored on her person, along with various tools."

"_Greetings,_" Aceso said softly, giving Freya a small bow at the waist, which visibly surprised the Tok'ra.

"Well, she is much more well-mannered than Frank," she said, bowing back to Aceso.

"_I have no reason to be well-mannered around flesh sacks, mammary-creature,_" Frank said simply. Currently, he was well equipped, carrying two P90, his Ma'Tok Gatling cannon, and his shoulder cannon, along with various blades hidden under his armor. "_And seeing as the master has not yet tampered with my personality, he must feel the same way._"

"In any case, please, follow me," Freya said, giving Harry a smile, despite her annoyance toward Frank, and led Harry away from the Stargate. "I was under the impression that more would be coming."

"Oh, they will. I just went ahead. They'll show up tomorrow," Harry said, smiling as well. "So, care to tell me why Ren Au wanted our help?"

"Certainly," Freya said as she stopped at the ring transporter. Harry and his two AI gathered around her, and the rings came up, taking them down into the Tok'ra tunnels. "A summit has been called among the System Lords. The deaths of Cronus and Apophis have left a power vacuum, and the System Lords have been warring amongst each other, trying to gain power. They have suffered heavy losses and expended an enormous amount of resources fighting amongst themselves. Now, however, they have declared a truce, and they are going to meet to discuss the establishment of a new order."

"Which presents a perfect opportunity to strike at them all at once," Harry deduced, nodding slowly. "I take it security will be tight?"

"Yes. That is why we cannot attack. However, each System Lord is allowed to bring one human slave, a lo'taur, which is the highest rank of slave among the Goa'uld. We want Daniel Jackson to take the place of Lord Yu's lo'taur, Jarren."

Harry snapped his fingers in realization, a bright smile appearing on his face.

"The poison we've been developing."

"Yes. As it is only harmful to symbiotes, Dr. Jackson can easily infiltrate the meeting and release the poison without harming himself," Freya said, nodding. "The deaths of the System Lords will create a power vacuum which will lead to a massive galaxy-wide war as the remaining Goa'uld struggle to take their titles."

"And how will Daniel manage to convince Yu that he is his lo'taur?"

"By pricking him with a needle coated with the chemicals secreted by the Reol. We have been in contact with them for a short while now, and when we revealed our plan to them, they were more than happy to provide the chemical."

Harry nodded, and they walked in silence for a while. Then, Freya glanced at Frank, then at Harry.

"Is there a reason why Frank has come so heavily equipped?"

"Oh, just a precaution," Harry said, shrugging. "He's been a bit grouchy lately, since he hasn't been allowed to carry around his weapons. And besides, I got this bad feeling earlier, and thought that it's be better to be safe than sorry."

"I understand," Freya said with a nod. Then, she stopped and turned to Harry, smiling softly. "Are you hungry?"

"Famished."

"_With your permission, master, I would prefer it if you allowed me to patrol the halls,_" Frank spoke up suddenly. "_Even if I was to be deactivated, I am disgusted at the thought of being present in the room when the two of you swap bodily fluids later in the evening._"

"Yeah, that's be for the best," Harry said, unfazed, while Freya blushed at the fact that what they were going to be doing later was so obvious. "Yeah, Frank, go patrol the halls. Aceso, go with him."

"_Understood, master._"

Giving bows, Frank and Aceso walked off.

"I can see that you have not yet done anything regarding Frank's personality," Freya commented. "Why?"

"I like Frank the way he is," Harry said, smiling. "It's hard to explain, but his personality just clicks with me. I really like his attitude. I suppose it's some kind of balance thing. When I'm at the SGC, I have all these peacemongering military people who want nothing more than to make friends and alliances. Now, I have a non-military person (but don't tell Frank I called him a person) at my side who wants nothing more than to wage war and eradicate alien lifeforms. His hatred and bloodlust is large enough to balance out the massive amount of peace-thinking I'm surrounded by, which is perfect for always keeping me in the middle."

"Is that true, or are you just saying that so that I will be satisfied with the explanation?"

"Well, partly true. Also, he amuses me. It's always funny to see him assaulting doors around the base, and trying to convince airmen to commit suicide by explaining, in detail, the downsides to being human."

Freya laughed softly. "You are a very amusing person, Harry, but I do not believe that I will ever understand your sense of humor."

–

**End of chapter twelve! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Finally reached Ravanna! In the next chapter, we're finally going to be seeing Frank in action when the Goa'uld attack the Tok'ra base!**


	13. Chapter 13

**ZnK here with chapter thirteen! In this chapter, Harry and Frank get to kill some Jaffa and blow things up!**

–

Harry sat at a table with Jacob and SG-1 in the Tok'ra base on Ravanna. SG-1 had just arrived, and Jacob was about to tell them the plan.

"So, how're you going to get me in?" Daniel asked.

"Yu will be among the System Lords attending the meeting," Jacob said, looking over a data pad.

"I thought you said he'd be going in as a slave?" Carter asked, which got her a look from Jacob.

"The System Lord Yu," he clarified.

"A little joke there..." Carter mumbled, making a 'small' gesture with her hand, then looked to her team for acknowledgment.

"Funny," O'Neill said, no amusement whatsoever in his voice.

"Yu knows my face, he'll recognize me," Daniel said, getting back on the subject.

"He will not," Ren Au said, walking into the chamber with Anise.

"Ren Au and her team have been working on a modified version of the chemical the Reol use," Jacob explained, gesturing for Ren Au, who set down a small box on the table, which Jacob handed to Daniel.

"If you can get close enough to inject him, you will be able to convince him that you are, in fact, his most trusted lo'taur," Ren Au said, which made O'Neill clear his throat and give them a puzzled look.

"His what?"

"Lo'taur is the highest rank amongst the human slaves of the System Lords," Teal'c explained.

"They're like personal attendants," Jacob said, nodding. "It's considered to be a position of great honor. I spent the last couple of months establishing myself as a minor Goa'uld in Yu's service. I'll be able to get Daniel on board his mothership and deal with the loose ends."

"What if Nirrti shows up?" Carter asked, but Jacob shook his head.

"Not much chance of that, she's still a renegade. And persona non grata among the System Lords. None of the other remaining System Lords have seen Danny's face."

"Assuming I make it onto the space station, what happens next?"

"You will wait until all the System Lords have arrived, and then you will use this," Ren Au said as she took a small, purple device from her pocket and handed it to Daniel. "Anise and Dr. Potter have worked on this for a long time."

"In liquid form it's pretty much harmless," Harry explained, pointing at the device in Daniel's hand. "However, if you push the button, the container will vaporize it, and it will become an incredibly deadly poison. Fortunately for you, it's only harmful to symbiotes, so you will be perfectly fine."

"Isn't that a little dangerous?" Carter asked, and Jacob nodded.

"More than you know. There's enough material in that vial to kill every Tok'ra on this base twice over."

"That is why this formula is only known to two people, Anise and Dr. Potter," Ren Au said.

"And it doesn't kill the host?" Daniel wanted to know.

"Not the chemical itself, but as you know, the dying symbiote releases its own toxin which is just as deadly."

Daniel gave a sarcastic smile, but Harry gave him a pointed look.

"Hey, mate, those hosts are over a thousand years old, have been through the sarcophagus countless times. The psychological damage they've suffered is pretty intense. And physically, without the Goa'uld sustaining them, they'd drop anyway, so what's the problem?"

"It's not like we're doing them a favor," Daniel insisted.

"Yes, we are," Harry said. "Daniel, these guys have seen everything that's happened while the Goa'uld has been in control. They have seen themselves do unspeakable things. Not many can survive that type of trauma."

"Wow..." O'Neill uttered, blinking. "You care?"

"Not really, I'm just trying to convince Daniel to use my poison to kill Goa'uld," Harry said with a shrug. "I don't care, but he does," he said, pointing at Daniel, who was nodding reluctantly.

"So, how many targets?" O'Neill asked.

"There'll be seven System Lords at the meeting," Jacob said. "That's all the major players. If we pull this off, the Goa'uld may never recover."

"What can we do?"

"Wait here. I'll communicate when the mission has been accomplished."

"Well, since we're done here, I have to go check on Frank... make sure he hasn't scared any Tok'ra to death," Harry said as he rose from his chair and walked off. Anise smiled at him as he reached her, and she followed him out of the room.

"That went well," Anise said conversationally. "However, why did you lie?"

"Hm?"

"Frank has been deactivated in my chambers for the last few hours now," Anise said shrewdly. "So, why did you lie?"

"Eh, I just didn't want them to give me a reason to stay," Harry said, shrugging. "I'm feeling a bit restless, and I don't want to just be sitting down and talking all day. Besides, it's an excellent escape."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if anyone stops me in a corridor and asks for my help, and I don't find it interesting, I can just tell them I'm busy looking for Frank."

"Or we can just go back to my chambers," Anise said, giving Harry a smirk. He could understand that she may have been feeling a bit left out. Freya had been the one in control all of last night.

"That... sounds like an excellent idea."

–

Harry, wearing nothing but his pants and shoes, was sitting in Anise's chambers. In front of him, Aceso was kneeling with her back turned to Harry, and the plating along her 'spine' had been removed. Underneath the plating, on either side of the spine, there was a long row of keron blocks. Currently, Harry was adding another layer to them, so she had two rows of keron blocks running up the length of her spine on either side, four rows in total. It was a bit overkill, but he didn't want her to run out of juice. You never knew, after all, how big the battles she'd end up in, where she would have to use her healing devices. Those devices drew from her internal power source, so if she used them too much, she'd deactivate.

"There," Harry said as he inserted the final keron block, before replacing the armor plating along her spine. "That should keep you going indefinitely, provided that you don't use up the energy in the blocks to the point where they cannot recharge."

"_Give me an order not to do so, master, and my programming will prevent it from ever happening,_" Aceso said softly. "_As you command, I obey._"

Harry grinned. "Well, I admit, you being so vocal about your loyalty is very refreshing. Even though I am one hundred percent sure of Frank's loyalty, he hardly ever voices it, other than when he wants to show others that they can't order him around."

"_I am not designation Frank, master. I was not designed based on his personality template. Therefore, I do not act like him,_" Aceso said simply. Harry realized that she might not be the ideal choice for making small talk with...

"Right... Well, onto orders, then. Aceso, you are to never allow every single one of your implanted keron blocks to run out of power. If so much as a single one of them runs out, I want you to notify me the second the opportunity presents itself," Harry ordered, then thought about it. Aceso seemed to enjoy following one of her prime directives, so he needed to add some things to the orders. "And under no circumstances are you to let the order to notify me take precedence over any previously given order. Understand?"

"_I understand, master._"

Suddenly, an alarm started blaring, and both Harry and Aceso shot to their feet, Harry looking around in confusion. Within moments, Anise arrived, looking startled.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We have received a transmission. Our sensors on the surface have detected a fleet of motherships bound for Ravanna. We have attempted to escape, but an incoming wormhole is blocking our escape through the Stargate," Anise said, trying to maintain a calm voice, but Harry could hear the nervousness in it.

Harry opened his control device and opened up communications with Frank.

"Frank, you read?"

"_Loud and clear, master, as always,_" came Frank's voice.

"Come to Anise's chamber. I may need you."

"_Understood, master._"

"Don't you have any ships?" Harry asked Anise, closing the control device. "Nothing that can be used for evacuation?"

"We have only a few unarmed cargo ships, but they are with operatives on other missions. All we can do now is make new tunnels, to spread out the risk of being hit by an air attack. However, even if we make new tunnels, if even one is uncovered, the enemy Jaffa will swarm into the tunnels..."

"Don't be nervous, Anise," Harry said with a grin. "We have a secret weapon?"

"The poison would kill us as well."

"We have no more poison anyway. Besides, that's not what I meant," Harry said, jutting his thumb in the direction of the doorway, to show Frank standing there. He grinned and turned to the AI. "Well, Frank, you know how you've always wanted to play 'Kill the Jaffa'?"

"_Master?_"

"You may get the chance."

Frank's 'eyes' flashed brightly, and Harry knew that it was only his pride as an epic AI that was keeping him from doing cartwheels around the room.

"_Harry!_" came O'Neill's voice from the radio in the pocket of Harry's lab coat. He walked over and fished it out.

"Yeah?"

"_Where are you?_"

"I'm in Anise's chambers. Apparently, there's no escape."

"_Yeah, I heard that,_" O'Neill said. "_Haven't you created some kind of weapon of mass-destruction that should be able to wipe out the incoming fleet?_"

"I'll put that on the top of my list of things to create," Harry said dryly. "I haven't exactly created a weapon of mass-destruction that can blow a ship out of orbit, but I _have_ made a veritable weapon of mass-destruction..."

"_What are you talking about?_"

"Well, Frank _has_ been dying to go out and have some fun. He's a bit bored."

O'Neill was quiet for a moment. Then, he said, "_Well, I suppose that _is_ what you designed him for... Alright, as soon as the opportunity presents itself, send him out there to at least create a distraction._"

"Got it," Harry said, then pocketed the radio again, before putting on his shirt and coat. "Well then, Frank, it looks like you will be able to go out and play soon."

"_My circuits are practically sparking with excitement, master! I hope their numbers are great. It would be a shame to face merely a handful of meatbags after such a long and boring wait. It would be rather anti-climactic._"

Harry chuckled, then made a 'come on' gesture as he left the room, Anise and his two AI following.

–

Not long after, the fleet seemed to have arrived, as the bombardment had started. The tunnels shook fiercely as the bombing commenced, sending dust and pieces of stone falling onto the Tok'ra, who were rushing back and forth like panicked ants.

"How long before they get through, you wager?" Harry asked, looking up at the ceiling as they ran down a tunnel.

"In the worst case scenario, it will be an hour before the Goa'uld unearth our tunnels, sending in the Jaffa," Anise said, still sounding fearful. Harry could understand. The only real danger she had ever experienced was when they were attacked by the Lupus, and even then, she hadn't been in _that_ much danger, considering Harry attracted its attention.

"_Well, that would be no fun at all,_" Frank commented. "_In these narrow tunnels, hitting an enemy with every single shot would not be a matter of skill. Any idiot could do that. It would be much more challenging to face them in an open area._"

They took a right, and found O'Neill, Carter, Teal'c, and Ren Au at the end of the tunnel they just entered. Harry gave a wave as they ran up to them.

"Hey, kids," Harry said, grinning slightly. "What's _shaking_?"

"This is hardly the time for jokes," Ren Au said, gesturing for the many Tok'ra on the floor, who had been wounded by falling stones.

"Aceso, heal those people so I can make jokes," Harry said, gesturing for the Tok'ra.

"_Yes, master,_" Aceso said in her usual soft monotone as he made her way over to the injured Tok'ra, getting to work on healing them with the healing devices on her hands.

The tunnel shook fiercely again, dropping more stones on them. The only ones who weren't knocked off-balance were Frank, Aceso, and Harry, but Harry was on the floor nonetheless, having covered Anise's body with his own. Good thing, too, because a rather heavy rock had landed on his back, a few inches away from his spine. Even with his amazing durability, it hurt a lot.

O'Neill struggled to his feet and grabbed his radio.

"Major, what's your situation?" he asked into the radio, getting only silence in response. "Mansfield, report!"

O'Neill cursed when he got no response, and Harry got to his feet, helping Anise up. Aceso made her way back over to them just then, which made Harry blink.

"Hey, I thought I told you to heal them?" he said, gesturing for the Tok'ra on the floor. Only one of them was getting up.

"_My scans show that the rest are dead, master. Despite your orders, I am incapable of bringing a person back to life,_" Aceso said simply.

"We gotta find Mansfield," O'Neill said.

"Follow me," Ren Au said, running off, everyone else following her.

They turned left and right, running down tunnel after tunnel. Finally, they came upon SG-17. Or rather, what was left of it. Lieutenant Elliot, there on his first assignment, was carrying an unconscious Mansfield. The Tok'ra Aldwinn was there as well, helping Elliot carry the Major, who was bleeding from his temple.

"Elliot?" O'Neill said.

"Direct hit, sir," Elliot said, no doubt knowing instinctively that O'Neill was asking about the Major.

"Where's the rest of your team?"

"They're dead."

"Aceso, can you heal him?" Carter asked, gesturing for Mansfield, and Aceso nodded.

"_From my initial scan, I can detect lacerations around his left temple, a depressed skull fracture, and cerebral hemorrhaging. These are the only injuries my scan can detect, and I am perfectly capable of healing them,_" Aceso said softly, making a gesture with her hand toward the floor. "_Please, lay him down on the floor. Master, shall I heal Major Mansfield?_"

"Yes, Aceso, heal him," Harry said, nodding.

Aceso nodded as well, and knelt down next to Mansfield, who had been laid down on the floor. The healing devices in her hands activated, and she started running them over his head.

"I will need to go to the lab," Ren Au said. "Although the formula isn't stored in any computer, there are still reports on it. I will need to erase the memory of the lab computer."

"I will go with you," Anise announced.

"We must determine what is happening on the surface, O'Neill," Teal'c said, to which O'Neill nodded.

"With the power down, we are cut off from the surface sensors," Aldwin's symbiote, whose name Harry never learned, said. "You'll have to use the secondary ring room."

"Alright, show me to the ring room," Harry said, gesturing for Frank. "My AI here is getting a bit restless, I think."

Aldwin nodded and jogged off, Harry, Frank, Teal'c, and O'Neill following, after Harry gave Aceso orders to follow Anise and take orders from her.

–

Harry, Frank, Aldwin, O'Neill, and Teal'c made their way out of the forest, approaching a bank, behind which they saw the many Al'kesh disappear. They lay down and peeked over the top, to see hundreds of Jaffa on the ground, leaving the three landed Al'kesh.

"They appear to be amassing a few troops," O'Neill said, blinking slowly.

"Once the aerial bombardment exposes the tunnels, they will infiltrate and search them," Teal'c told them, and O'Neill reached for his radio.

"Carter, come in..." There was no answer. "Carter, respond." Again, no answer. "Let's get back."

"You do that," Harry said, nodding slowly. "I think Frank and I will stay."

"Are you out of your mind?" O'Neill asked, his eyes widening. "You can't take on over a hundred Jaffa."

"Bet you ten dollars you're wrong," Harry said with a grin, before looking to Frank. "Alright, Frank, it's time to go play with the enemy Jaffa."

"_Oh, glorious day, master,_" Frank said, getting to his feet and taking the Ma'Tok Gatling cannon off his back. "_Prejudice set to maximum!_"

"Come on, then," Harry said and leapt over the bank, sliding down the steep hill toward the Jaffa. Frank did the same, only when he started sliding, he had already opened fire with his cannon.

It was funny, from this distance. After all, when Frank's veritable beam of staff blasts started peppering the Jaffa, they looked very much like ants, scurrying around and attempting to get behind cover.

"Frank, those Al'kesh could be a problem. Take out two of them!" Harry called, pointing to the landed ships. Frank nodded and raised his head to look at the ships, all the while still firing at the Jaffa. He looked to the closest Al'kesh, and the cannon on his shoulder took aim, and then fired.

Whereas Harry had made the Ma'Tok Gatling cannon by increasing the fire rate at the cost of lowering the damage, with Frank's shoulder cannon, he had done the exact opposite. His shoulder cannon could only fire once every ten seconds, but in return, it packed more damage than ten staff blasts combined. If he had to make a comparison, he'd say the cannon on Frank's shoulder was about as powerful as the staff cannon on an Al'kesh.

Therefore, it came as no surprise to Harry when the cockpit of the landed Al'kesh, unshielded, exploded in a single shot.

They reached the bottom of the hill, and the last thing Harry heard from Frank before the mad scientist dashed off was, "_Prepare for disintegration, meatbags!_"

Harry grinned to himself as he charged two Jaffa, slamming his palms into their chests, releasing his wavelength into them. Usually, he only used enough to knock a person unconscious. This time, he unleashed five times more, enough shock to the body that the heart would cease beating.

He charged right through the ranks, taking down any Jaffa that got in his way. His target was the Al'kesh.

Meanwhile, Frank was experiencing a joy he had never before experienced. This wasn't the sole reason why he was created, but oh, how he loved it!

The energy-absorbing properties of the keron blocks strategically placed under his armor allowed him to be protected from the Jaffa staff blasts, so the only real movements he had to make was to shift his body to make sure they hit the keron blocks.

He watched as the Al'kesh his master had entered suddenly took off into the air. Without a doubt, his master was going to go up to the fleet of motherships and cause some chaos there. If it wasn't for the large amount of meatbags on the ground, Frank might had envied him.

It wasn't long until the Ma'Tok Gatling cannon stopped spewing staff blasts, its barrels slowly coming to a stop. He was very disappointed to see that no more Jaffa were getting cut in half by his Gatling fire...

"_Oh dear,_" Frank said, looking down at the cannon as he kept maneuvering his body with ridiculous ease. "_It would seem that I forgot to allow it to recharge in my excitement. Ah well,_" he spoke in a monotone, replacing the cannon on his back. Then, his arms flew out to the sides, and a two feet long telescopic blade extended from each forearm. "_It would seem that this will need to end in a bloody fashion nonetheless. I envy you meatbags... to be given the honor of being killed by a magnificent killing machine such as I... A pleasure I doubt I will ever experience..._"

Frank stood there in thoughtful silence for a moment. Well, it wasn't very silent, given the yells from the Jaffa around him, and the many staff blasts flying through the air. But hey, Frank turned off his ears, so he didn't hear it all. Then, he turned it on again, and his eyes, which had previously been glowing a dull orange, now turned red.

"_Entering close-quarter combat mode! Spine-removal grants bonus points!_"

With that, he charged into the Jaffa, his arms moving at incredible speeds. As he tore through the ranks, from a distance, the only way one could see where Frank might be was to look at the severed limbs and severed heads flying into the air as he cut through them.

"Ah, Frank," Harry said just then, standing in a ring room on board one of the five Ha'taks in orbit around the planet. Around him were five dead Jaffa. "I hope this will help you relieve some of your stress..."

He chuckled softly as he walked off, looking around.

"And now to cause a bit of trouble for this Goa'uld... And this is an excellent opportunity to try out a new invention."

–

Harry entered the Pel'tak of the flagship, which belonged to the Goa'uld Zipacna. As soon as he entered, he charged through the room, taking out every single Jaffa in there, leaving only Zipacna, a really sleazy-looking Goa'uld, who was sitting in his command chair, staring at Harry in shock.

"What's this?" Zipacna asked, tilting his head to the side. "I had heard no reports of an intruder."

"Yeah, well..." Harry said, opening his control device and pushing a button on it, activating his cloaking device and making him fade from view. "This is what I used on your other motherships to avoid detection. Didn't really enjoy the thought of tearing through your Jaffa like my associate is doing on the surface."

He deactivated the cloaking device again, then grinned at Zipacna.

"And what do you want?" Zipacna asked.

"Well, Zip... mind if I call you Zip?" Harry asked, and before Zipacna could even respond, he continued, "Well, Zip, I've been thinking. I mean, you have no more Jaffa on this ship, so why don't you just surrender and give this ship to the Tok'ra as compensation for all the trouble you've caused?"

Zipacna's eyebrow slowly rose.

"You don't truly believe that I would do such a thing, do you?"

"Well, I have the advantage. It would be in your best interest to do as I say."

"I have five Ha'taks here. What makes you think you are in a position to make demands."

"You heard what I said, but you clearly didn't listen," Harry said, smirking. "I made my way through your four other Ha'taks before I came here, and I used my cloaking device to avoid detection. What do you think I was doing over there?"

Slowly, Zipacna's eyes widened, especially when Harry fished a silvery cylinder with a red button on top out of his pocket.

"I set up a charge in each Ha'tak. This charge, when activated, kickstarts the self-destruct," Harry explained, grinning widely. "No countdown, no warning, just boom. That's why I used my cloaking device. It's no fun to blow up a ship if no one is on it. And now... _boom_."

Harry pressed the button...

From the surface, Frank looked up to see four of the five Ha'taks visible in orbit blow up in a glorious fashion. Alright, despite the overabundance of fragile flesh sacks on the ground with him, Frank had to admit that he envied his master a bit. After all, Frank had never blown up a ship. The cockpit of an Al'kesh didn't count.

"_I will have to plant some charges in these two,_" Frank said thoughtfully as he spun a Jaffa around and buried his blade in his back. "_It will be most amusing to blow up these ships. After one hundred and seven meatbags, this gets a bit dull... Maybe if I tear off someone's arms and beat them to death with them?_"

–

When the massive Ha'tak landed on the surface, having blown all the Al'kesh bombing the surface out of the sky, and Harry stepped off, he was incredibly surprised at the sight he found.

The two Al'kesh had been blown to smithereens, probably as a result of Frank not wanting Harry to have done something glorious that he hadn't done, the ground was littered with dead Jaffa, and only one of them was still alive... barely.

The Jaffa was on the ground, his arms torn off, and Frank was currently standing over him... beating him with them...

"Frank," Harry said as he approached the AI, who kept hitting the Jaffa.

"_Welcome back, master!_" Frank greeted happily without pausing. "_I take it your trip into orbit was most successful?_"

"Yeah, I got the Tok'ra a ship, and I kind of decapitated the Goa'uld in charge of it," Harry said, jutting his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Ha'tak. "In hindsight, it would have been better to keep him alive so I could find out who he served, but ah well..."

Now, Frank finally stopped beating the Jaffa, staring down at him. Determining that he was long since dead, Frank dropped the torn-off limbs to the ground and turned to Harry, who only just now took a good look at his blood-spattered armor.

"I like the new paint job, Frank."

"_Thank you, master. However, I prefer the normal rust red. This color is only suitable for me when it is the blood of my enemies coating my armor. The spatter-pattern is a nice touch, after all._"

Harry laughed as he walked off, grinning widely.

"Well, we should let the others know what we've done. They're probably worried sick."

"_They have no faith in us, master. Perhaps I should bring a spine as a trophy? You know, a way to show them how futile it was to think that we could ever be defeated._"

"I think your new paint job will serve that end very well as it is," Harry said with a smirk as they made their way back up the hill, and to the ring transporter.

When they appeared in the ring room in the Tok'ra base, Harry immediately took his radio out of his pocket.

"O'Neill."

There was a moment of silence, and then O'Neill's voice came back, "_Harry! Where have you been, for crying out loud?!_"

"Wow, okay, temper..." Harry muttered back. "I was merely blowing up a couple of Ha'taks while procuring one for the Tok'ra, while Frank has been busy wiping out the Jaffa on the ground. What have _you_ been doing?"

"_Never mind that,_" O'Neill said hastily, and Harry knew that he was a bit embarrassed about the fact that a scientist did something in battle he doubted he could ever do. "_Get to the lab. We're waiting._"

"Alright."

–

To say Harry was surprised a few days later was an understatement. Anise had shown up in his lab, and claimed that she had requested to be stationed on earth indefinitely. While this was a surprise, it was a very pleasant surprise, he had to admit. He supposed that the Tok'ra hadn't been too upset to let her go, considering that Harry had given them a Ha'tak, and with the help of Frank annihilated the threat to their base.

Naturally, they were going to have to find another planet to move their base to, but still, they were grateful.

Now, Harry was sitting on his couch in his apartment, with Freya on his right, and Tonks on his left. Both were leaning against him, and his feet were up on the coffee table.

"Ah, it's a shame," Harry muttered, sighing.

"What is?" Tonks asked.

"Well, so much excitement in one day... You just know that it's going to be followed by months upon months of dull monotony, broken only by Frank's constant attempts to scare people to death..." Harry muttered.

"I know this is not something I am happy about, but you should take solace in the fact that Anubis has resurfaced, more powerful than ever," Freya said, nudging Harry. "I am certain that you will be offered plenty of excitement from him."

"I suppose. But Frank can only keep himself amused by replaying the battle in his head for so long," Harry said, gesturing for the AI, who was standing in the corner of the living room, his eyes pulsing slowly. "And if he does it for too long, he will have experienced his various methods of killing so many times that he will have to come up with new ones, and then he will run around in the SGC asking people if he can try them out on them..."

"I thought you found it amusing when he did that?" Tonks said, furrowing her brow.

"Well, I do, naturally," Harry said with a nod. "But when he does, people complain to Hammond, and Hammond, in turn, complains to me, and I just don't want to bother listening to him, so I tune him out. Unfortunately, he notices that, and ends up yelling at me at such a volume that I _can't_ tune him out, and I'm forced to listen to him..."

"Yours is truly an unfortunate life," Tonks said with a snort.

"I know."

"I was being sarcastic... You know, most people would get fired for that."

"But I can't get fired, since the PM wants me here, and I've contributed greatly to the SGC, so that it probably the worst thing that can happen to me. And it's annoying."

Slowly, Tonks nodded, accepting the logic. Then, she looked at Freya.

"So you will be staying with us here, then?"

"Yes, whenever I am not working at the SGC," Freya said, smiling brightly at them.

"Well, we're happy to have you," Tonks said with a grin.

Frank's eyes suddenly stopped pulsing, and he perked up.

"_Oh, no!_"

"What's wrong, Frank?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"_Master! During my one hundred and fifty-seventh kill, I should have severed the meatbag's spine first, and then torn off his head. With the proper method, I would have been able to tear out his spine as well!_"

"I watched the battle footage, Frank. Didn't you already do that?"

"_Yes, master, but I would have gotten bonus points had I done so with that meatbag as well! Oh, hindsight, what a cruel mistress..._"

Harry had to snort at that.

–

**End of chapter thirteen! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Well, the action wasn't as great as I would have liked, but I couldn't come up with anything better. Now, in the next chapter, SG-1 encounters the mother of the Replicators, the android Reece! Stay tuned!**


	14. Chapter 14

**ZnK here with chapter fourteen! Phew! This took me a bit longer than I had planned... I was honestly a bit stumped as to how to proceed... Anyway, in this chapter, Harry gets a little OOC with Reece, and finally gets to meet a damn Asgard!**

**Oh, and for those who have been wondering, Aceso's body currently looks like the T-X's endoskeleton from Terminator 3. She doesn't have the liquid metal skin, though, so she can't make herself look human.**

–

Harry was rolling down a corridor in the SGC on his chair at high speeds. He was pretty used to the layout of the SGC right now, so he knew exactly when to kick off to turn corners, even without looking. So it wasn't surprising to those who knew him when he was rolling backwards down the corridor, a notebook in his hand.

The last time he turned a corner, he didn't kick off quite as hard, so his rolling became slow enough for him not to completely pass Dr. Fraiser as she walked down the corridor.

"Hey, Doc," Harry said without looking up from his notebook, rolling next to Fraiser at the same speed as she walked. "I heard they found something."

"An android, of some kind," Fraiser said, making Harry look up in surprise, to see that the doctor was wearing a protective suit. "It's currently in Isolation Room One."

"So I heard. That's why I'm heading there now," Harry said, pocketing the notebook as they reached the door to the isolation room, which slid open when the guard outside opened it.

Carter was already in there, and in the center of the room, on a table, was what appeared to be a young woman, but judging by the lack of a soul, it clearly wasn't human.

"Hey, Janet, Harry," Carter said when she noticed the two.

"Hey. How's the new toy?" Fraiser asked.

"Amazing," Carter said, smiling brightly. "This is more advanced than any android we've encountered before. Check this out," she said and gestured for a microscope behind her. Harry and Fraiser moved over to the microscope. Fraiser looked first, and when Harry looked, he saw a cell, which was crawling with...

"Nanites?" Harry asked, pulling back in surprise and blinking at the android on the table. "That... is incredible."

"I know," Carter said excitedly. "They seem to be some sort of self-repair mechanism."

"But they're inactive," Fraiser said, and Carter nodded.

"They seem to deactivate when disconnected from it." Carter paused for a moment, then corrected herself, "Her."

"What kind of power source is she running on?" Harry asked, moving over to the woman, looking her over with his right eye. "Oh, now isn't this interesting?"

"What is?" Carter asked curiously.

"My eye is picking up a peculiar energy that I have only ever seen in one other thing."

"What?"

Harry didn't answer, instead digging his hand into his pocket and taking out a keron block, holding it up to the two women, who went wide-eyed.

"Are you telling me this girl is some kind of advanced Replicator?" Carter asked in shock.

"Stop jumping to conclusions," Harry said, scoffing. "I'm just saying that she runs on the same kind of energy. But damn, this machine is a work of art."

Harry reached down and pressed the sides of the back of the android's neck. Slits appeared in the skin on the right side of her neck, and something that looked very much like a CD tray slid out.

"Wow," Carter uttered as Harry picked up the small, gray disc that was on the tray, looking it over.

"Well, at least now we know how to activate her," he announced, turning the disc over in his hand. "The power isn't exactly depleted, but it's low. My guess is that she's in some kind of sleep-mode. Fully charging this keron disc should be able to deactivate the sleep mode."

"I'm going to have to take that up with General Hammond," Carter said, and Harry nodded.

"You do that. I'm going to keep examining this girl," he said, pocketing the keron disc.

"I'm just worried that Frank might get jealous and try to destroy her," Carter said, only to get waved off by the homicidal AI's creator.

"Don't worry about Frank. I'm keeping him at my apartment. Besides, I've found out a way to distract him."

"Really?" Fraiser asked. She hadn't actually had many run-ins with Frank, but she had no doubt heard a lot about him from Carter. "And how did you manage that?"

"I installed Mortal Kombat in his CPU. He's been playing that game for days now," Harry explained, chuckling.

–

It wasn't until the next day that Harry came back to Isolation Room One, even though permission to reactivate the android had been given long before.

"Sorry I'm late," Harry said as he walked into the room, finding O'Neill and Daniel there with Carter. "You have no idea how much energy this thing can hold," he muttered, holding up the keron disc.

"What do you mean?" Carter asked.

"I had to completely drain fifty keron blocks to fill this baby up," Harry explained, walking up to the android. He placed the disc in the tray, which closed again, the skin mending in half a second. Then... nothing happened.

"Now what?" O'Neill asked. Carter opened her mouth to speak, but Harry smiled softly, placing a hand on the android's forehead.

"Give her a minute. This girl has been deactivated for a long time. Takes a while to get back in the swing of things."

"Maybe it would have been for the best to have Aceso here?" Daniel said, shrugging. "You know, to give it something to relate to."

Suddenly, the android drew in a deep breath, her back arching. Carter reached down and felt her wrist.

"There's a pulse," she announced.

"It has a heartbeat?" Daniel asked in surprise.

"It has a heart?" O'Neill asked, even more surprised.

"It's designed to create a very realistic illusion of humanity," Carter explained as the android took another deep breath, before sitting up.

"Where am I?" she gasped, looking around in confusion.

"You are in Isolation Room One of a secret facility on the planet earth," Harry explained, smiling at the android. He felt that it was time for a change in behavior. He had gotten many complaints that he was too cold and apathetic around people, so had decided to try something different for a change. "I am Doctor Harry Potter. This is Major Samantha Carter, Colonel Jack O'Neill, and Doctor Daniel Jackson."

"My name is Reece," the girl said hesitantly, then looked around again, before leaning in toward Harry. "Where's my father?"

"No idea," Harry said, shaking his head. Reece got off the bed, and immediately, the two guards at the door moved to block it, raising their rifles, which made her flinch. "Hey!" Harry said, turning his head to give them a glare. "Don't be so jumpy, can't you see she's frightened?"

The glare was enough to make the two airmen flinch. Harry turned back to Reece, who really did look very scared.

"Don't hurt me," she pleaded.

"Don't worry, that's not our intention," Harry said softly.

"How did I get here?"

Harry hummed, watching Reece. Then, he said, "How about some privacy? I'll take you to my lab, and I'll tell you everything, okay?"

"L-Lab?" Reece stuttered, her eyes widening.

"Well, it's pretty much an office and a lab," Harry elaborated. "I'm not going to experiment on you or anything, if that's what you think. I have a really cool chair you might like."

"Uh, Harry, maybe you shouldn't take her out of here yet?" O'Neill said, which just got him a smirk from Harry.

"Oh, what are you going to do, grab that guy who can stop me? What was his name... Michael McDoesn'texist?"

Putting a comforting hand on Reece's shoulder, Harry started leading her out of the isolation room. The airmen at the door looked like they were going to try to stop them, but Harry's glare froze them in place.

So, a few minutes later found Harry sitting on his operating table, while Reece was greatly enjoying his chair, spinning round and round on it.

"Told you you'd like it," Harry said, grinning slightly.

"You said you'd tell me everything once we got here," Reece said, stopping in her spinning to look at Harry.

"That's true, I did. So, what do you want to know?"

"Well, how did I get here?"

"You were found on a planet, I don't recall the name, but my team found you and brought you here through the Stargate."

"What's a Stargate?"

"Put simply... it's a giant ring that forms a wormhole that allows us to travel between planets in seconds," Harry explained.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Well, it's not like there was anyone who could wake you on your planet," Harry said, shrugging. Then, he noticed that Reece's eyes had widened drastically. "Oh, shoot. You didn't know... Sorry, I've been told I'm rather... insensitive regarding these things... I'm sorry to tell you this, but the civilization on your planet was destroyed, a long time ago."

"How?"

"No idea. There were no traces of what, exactly, caused it," Harry said, shrugging again. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"I, uh..." Reece gasped for breath as her eyes started welling up with tears. Wow, even tears... She was a very advanced android. "I was asleep..."

"I know, that's how you were found."

"What about my father?" Reece asked, sounding distraught.

"You were the only survivor, judging by what they found. You don't know anything?"

"My father... knew there was danger..." Reece whispered, wiping her eyes. "He told me to go to sleep. He said he would wake me when the danger went away..."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Harry said sincerely. He knew how rough that had to be for an artificial lifeform. They were created to take orders, and without a doubt, her 'father,' was her creator, and the one who gave her the orders. To find out that he was gone...

Reece was quiet for a few minutes. She seemed to try to cheer herself up by spinning around on the chair a few times, probably to gather her thoughts. Then, she looked up at Harry.

"What do you want?"

"Well, I don't know what the others were thinking when they brought you back, but I, myself, would like to understand you," Harry said, which made Reece blink in confusion.

"What about me?"

"I'd like to know how you work. You know, systems, functions, capabilities, etcetera," Harry explained, which only served to cause Reece to blink even more.

"I'm like you."

Harry reached out with his foot and placed it on the chair between Reece's legs, pulling the chair over so that she was in front of him. He smiled softly at her.

"No, Reece, you're not like me. We're very different."

"Well," Reece said with a giggle, gesturing for her body, "obviously."

"That's not what I meant," Harry said. "I meant on the inside."

Reece blinked again, then furrowed her brow.

"How?"

"I am a fully organic lifeform," Harry explained. "You are an artificial lifeform. You must have noticed yourself. You were born that size, you have always remained that size no matter how old you get..."

"I'm alive," Reece said immediately, stubbornly.

"Oh, yes, you are alive, Reece," Harry said, reaching over and putting a hand on her shoulder. "That's what makes you so special."

"What do you mean?"

"Reece," Harry said, getting off the table and walking around Reece, "you were created by your father. For what purpose, I have no idea. Perhaps he just wanted you to live a normal life... But you're not a human. You are very much alive, and I never want you to think that you are a being less important than a human, because you are not. Far from it," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a keron block, holding it out to the android. "You feel a connection to this, don't you?"

Reece visibly flinched at the sight of the block and shot out of her chair.

"H-How did you get that?"

"I made it," Harry said, pocketing it again. "I didn't tell the others, because I don't know what they would have done to you if they found out, but I know what you can do. All I needed to do was look over your keron pathways to know that they were designed exactly the same as the pathways in a Replicator block."

"R-Replicator?" Reece repeated.

"You have built things using blocks like this, haven't you?" Harry asked. Reece shook her head, but Harry gave her a stern look. "I'm not going to hurt you, Reece. I just want an answer. You've built things, right?"

"I... You want to destroy me, don't you?"

"Reece, I am a scientist. I have a brain capable of understanding many thing. If I wanted to destroy you, I would never even have reactivated you. I would have picked you apart and examined each little piece of you at my leisure. I obviously don't want to destroy you. I told you, didn't I? You're special."

"H-How can I know that?" Reece muttered, staring at Harry distrustfully.

"Because you're not the only special one in this room," Harry said simply, then looked into the corner of the lab. "Aceso, cloaking off."

Aceso's cloaking device deactivated, and slowly, Aceso faded into view, which made Reece's eyes widen.

"_Greetings, designation Reece,_" Aceso said softly, bowing her head to Reece.

"This is Aceso. I built her," Harry said, gesturing for the AI. "I have another one, but I don't think you want to meet Frank. He's a bit... special..."

"Like me?" Reece asked, but Harry laughed and waved her off.

"Far from it. He has thing thing against organic lifeforms," Harry said, shrugging. "Now, Reece, come on. I played your game. I pretended that I thought you honestly didn't know what you were, and I pretended that I believed you when you said you didn't know what happened to your planet. Now, please, let's be honest with each other, okay?"

"I... I don't know..." Reece muttered. Harry smiled softly and walked over to her. He put his hands under her arms and lifted her up, setting her down on his operating table.

"Come on, Reece. I mean you no harm. I have great respect for your kind."

"My kind?" Reece repeated curiously, and Harry just gestured for Aceso. Then, he paused and shook his head.

"No, it would be rude to compare you to Aceso. No offense to Aceso, but you are leagues beyond her in sophistication. I'm actually a bit jealous of your father."

Reece smiled softly at the mention of her father. "He always said I was special."

"Oh, you are, Reece. Now, how about answering me?" Harry said, smiling at Reece. "Have you built things using blocks like that?"

"Y-Yeah... I made toys..."

"And these toys listened to your command?" Harry guessed, to which Reece nodded.

"Yes... The people on my planet were afraid of me, and my toys... They thought my father made me wrong... They wanted to destroy me..."

"So you taught your toys to make more of themselves, and you taught them to defend themselves against threats," Harry concluded, and Reece nodded again. "So, why didn't you stop them when they started attacking your world?"

"I tried, but... but I couldn't..." Reece muttered, her eyes welling up with tears again. "They wouldn't listen to me anymore... They killed everyone, they killed my father... Then they went away. I was alone, I was sad..." She sniffed once, then looked at Harry. "You don't like me anymore. You think I'm bad."

"Quite on the contrary, Reece," Harry said, reaching out and putting a comforting hand on her shoulder again. "I still like you, and I still think you are a very special girl. We all make mistakes. Your mistake was in your orders."

"What do you mean?"

"When your father made you, he gave you a human mind, yes?" Harry asked. "I mean, he gave you emotions and everything, a consciousness that could evolve with experience?"

"Yes?"

"Well, then you don't quite understand how a computer's brain works. It follows the orders to the letter. They were told to replicate themselves, so they did, and they were told to defend themselves from anything that might threaten them. That's where you made your mistake."

"What do you mean?"

"Organic lifeforms will always have fear, just like you," Harry explained. "And most all organic lifeforms react violently when met with fear. Without a doubt, the Replicators, your toys, discovered this. Therefore, they decided that all organics were a threat, and set out to eliminate them."

"B-But... That's not what I wanted..." Reece muttered.

"But it's what you told them," Harry said, smiling softly. "I have learned, through talking to Frank, that when you give a computer an order, you have to choose your words very carefully. But it's not your fault. Like I said, we all make mistakes."

"You... You don't want to destroy me?"

"I definitely don't," Harry said, smiling still. "You can help me, Reece. The Replicator have expanded their numbers greatly. They are still acting on their standing order, to eliminate any threats. We can defeat them with your help."

"You want to destroy them?!" Reece asked, her eyes widening in shock as she jumped off the table.

Harry hummed, then shook his head.

"Yes and no. I want to neutralize them. You see, Reece, if left as they are now, they will destroy everything, and you will be alone again. They aren't your friends, or even your toys anymore," Harry said. "Friends don't abandon friends."

Reece was quiet. She looked like she really didn't want to help Harry with this. Instead, she changed the subject.

"What is that in your head?" she asked, pointing at the bolt. Harry blinked and reached up, grabbing it.

"This? This is what I call a Thought-Bolt. You see, my brain is organic. Being organic, it runs the risk of deteriorating with age. This device, as long as I keep winding it, keep my brain healthy and in pristine condition for as long as I live."

Slowly, Reece nodded in understanding.

"You... You're a lot kinder than I thought you'd be," she mumbled, smiling slightly. "I thought you looked scary when I first saw you."

"Well, I am scary," Harry said, gesturing for his face. "These stitches are here mostly for intimidation purposes. I am usually rather rude and condescending when I talk to people, but that's usually humans. I really don't like most humans. But you're not human. And I don't know... I guess since I have these attachments to Frank and Aceso, I guess I kind of took a liking to you from the start."

"I understand," Reece said slowly.

"I don't think you do," Harry said, smiling at her. "Hell, even I have trouble understanding my own mind sometimes. I guess I'm prone to acting random every once in a while."

Reece nodded again, staring down at the floor. Slowly, she reached back and hopped up on the table again, looking up at Harry.

"What's going to happen to me now?"

"I want to examine you," Harry said. "Your ability to create and control the Replicators is amazing, to say the least. However, your father, I am sorry to say, made a small mistake when he created you."

"What do you mean?" Reece asked, her eyes widening, a hint of anger in them. "He didn't make me wrong!"

"No, he didn't make you wrong, but he made a mistake," Harry said. "He gave you this ability to create your toys. However, he also gave you a mind that would grow with experience, basically letting you grow up in your mind. You should know that children aren't exactly ideal for handling that sort of thing. The mistake he made was not waiting to give you your ability to create your toys until you were old enough to handle the responsibilities of such a power."

"What?" Reece asked, clearly not understanding.

"I want to deactivate you again," Harry said. "I want to remove the program allowing you to create and control your toys. It's a burden you shouldn't have to bear."

"No!" Reece said immediately, hopping off the table once again. "You will not take my toys from me!"

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but Reece pushed him away, causing him to roll back into his workbench. Reece made her way toward the door, but Harry shot out of his chair and grabbed her arm. He gave a pull, yanking Reece away from the door and sending her spinning into Aceso's waiting arms.

"Ah well, compassion didn't work," Harry said, shrugging, before charging forward and slamming his palm into Reece's stomach, unleashing his wavelength into her. Reece cried out in pain from the energy forcefully entering her systems, and while she was distracted by that, Harry reached up and pushed the two spots on the sides of the back of her neck, causing the keron disc to slide out.

As soon as it did, Reece slumped, her eyes still open, but unseeing. Harry removed the disc and pocketed it.

"Emotions in machines... especially the emotions of a child..." he muttered, shaking his head. "If the man wanted a daughter, why did he make a machine?"

"_One can wonder, master,_" Aceso said, nodding. "_Master, what do I do with designation Reece?_"

"Put her on the table," Harry said, making a small gesture with his hand. "Well, we've established that she probably can't be reasoned with. That was... weird, acting all... kind and gentle..."

"_Indeed, master. It does not fit your personality to act in such a fashion,_" Aceso said with another nod. "_May I ask, master, why you acted like that in the first place?_"

"Well, I was telling the truth earlier," Harry said, shrugging. "She is a very special creation. Her mind is crap, but her body is an amazing piece of machinery. And I guess I do have a soft spot for artificial lifeforms. But she was just a bit too much to deal with. Not at all what I'd expect from such an advanced lifeform."

"_What now, master?_"

Harry hummed.

"Well, I would like to pick her apart and take a look at her, but... I guess the Asgard have a greater need to examine her... And giving her to them would get me on their good side. Who knows, I might even get to meet one?"

Harry pulled his chair over and sat down on it, rolling toward the door.

"I guess I'll have to discuss this with Hammond. Wait here with Reece."

"_Understood, master._"

–

Harry walked into the briefing room late the next day. Behind him was Aceso, carrying the still deactivated Reece. Inside the briefing room were Hammond, O'Neill, Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c.

"I take it you managed to contact them?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"We finally did," Hammond said with a nod. "The Asgard have been hard-pressed to make a stand against the Replicators, so when they heard about the android, they were very eager to come pick it up."

"Does that mean I can finally meet an-" Harry started, but stopped when he was surrounded by a bright light. When it cleared, he and Aceso found themselves standing on a very high-tech bridge of a ship, which looked vastly more advanced than a Goa'uld vessel. Before them, in a command chair, sat a very short creature, very skinny with a large, bulging head, showing that it had a very impressive brain.

"Welcome," the creature spoke in a slow, monotone voice, blinking slowly at him. "You must be Dr. Potter."

"-Asgard..." Harry finished his sentence, blinking at the creature. "Yes, I am. And you are?"

"I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet," the Asgard introduced, bowing its head to Harry, who bowed his own.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet an Asgard," Harry said with a grin. "You have been a subject of great interest to me for a long time."

"Have we?" Thor asked slowly.

"Yes. From what I have heard and read about you, I found your bodies to be particularly... peculiar."

"Indeed? What do you find so peculiar about the Asgard, Dr. Potter?" Thor asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Evolution," Harry explained simply. "You are smart enough to avoid evolving into such frail forms. So something must have happened. That is what I find the most peculiar about your race."

"You are correct, Dr. Potter. The Asgard did not always look like this. Our current bodies are the result of cloning."

"Cloning?" Harry asked, perking up.

"Yes. You have discovered something that may be a means for us to defeat the Replicators. Therefore, I believe you deserve to satisfy your curiosity," Thor said. "Thousands of years ago, our bodies were tall and strong. However, we wished to extend our lifespans, so we started cloning ourselves. The mental patterns of Asgard that became ill or fatally injured were preserved by downloading them into computer memory crystals. The patterns were later placed in a new cloned body. This had... side-effects, however..."

"From the looks of things, I take it your cloning process damages your genome somehow?" Harry said, raising an eyebrow.

"It is as you deduced, Dr. Potter. Excessive use of the cloning process began to damage and degrade the Asgard genome. Unless a cure can be found, our race is dying. We have devoted a considerable amount of time and resources into the project, but our best effort have proved fruitless. Now, however, if we are able to defeat the Replicators, we may be able to focus everything on finding a cure. You have our gratitude, Dr. Potter."

"Do you have many clone bodies?" Harry asked curiously, to which Thor nodded.

"We always have a selection of clone bodies in stasis in the event that our current body is damaged," Thor said, tilting his head to the side again. "Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering if I could have a look at one," Harry said, grinning slightly. "I mean, I've created a fully functioning clone body, so I have some experience in the field."

"I doubt very much that a human could come up with that which the Asgard cannot," Thor said, which made Harry furrow his brow.

"I didn't insult your intelligence, so why did you insult mine?" he asked, giving Thor a small glare. "If you were really so intelligent as you claim, you should have made sure there was no chance of genetic deterioration before you even started the cloning process. Every scientists knows to look for long-term effects before approving an invention for public use."

Thor stared at Harry for a long time. Then, he gave a bow of his head.

"I apologize, Dr. Potter. It was rude of me to insult your intelligence in such a fashion. But you must understand. The Asgard have evolved to a level of intelligence that few can match."

"Bet you ten quid that I can," Harry said with a smirk. "How about a trade?" he said suddenly, jutting his thumb over his shoulder to point at Reece, who was still in Aceso's arms. "I'll trade you Reece here for a clone body of yours. Fair trade, don't you think? It can't hurt to have me take a look."

Thor was quiet for a moment, before nodding and saying, "From what General Hammond has told me, you are indeed above most, if not all, humans in terms of intelligence. Very well. I shall trade with you, Dr. Potter. Please..."

He moved a crystal on the armrest of his command chair, and Reece's body disappeared in a flash of light. Then, there was another flash of light, and an unmoving Asgard body appeared at Harry's feet. On its chest was a white crystal.

"That is a way for you to contact the Asgard," Thor said, pointing at the crystal. "If you possess the intellect I suspect, then you should have no trouble deducing how it works. Use it to contact me if you find out anything helpful regarding our condition."

"I will," Harry said with a nod as he knelt and grabbed the crystal, pocketing it, before picking up the unmoving clone body. "It was a genuine pleasure meeting you, Supreme Commander Thor."

"Likewise, Dr. Potter. Again, I thank you for the android. It is my hope that it will be of great use to us. And good luck."

With that, Harry was surrounded by a bright light again, and when it cleared, he found himself once again standing in the briefing room.

"Thor!" Carter exclaimed immediately, running up to them. "What happened?"

"This is just a lifeless clone," Harry said simply. "We made a trade. I offered to take a look into their genes and fix their cloning problem."

"Cloning problem?" O'Neill asked, blinking.

"I'm sure they'll tell you," Harry said, handing the body over to Aceso. "Take it to my lab."

"_Yes, master. Do you wish for me to prepare your tools?_"

"Please do. And if anyone enters without permission, throw them out."

"_Understood._"

Aceso gave a bow of her head, and then left the briefing room.

"Harry," O'Neill said after a moment of silence. "I know you."

"Yeah?"

"So don't be insulted when I ask you this, alright?"

"Ask me what?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You didn't say anything to Thor that would make the Asgard hate the human race forever, did you?"

"Would I do that?" Harry asked, but upon seeing the looks he received from the people in the room, he nodded and conceded, "Alright, dumb question, but no, I didn't say anything that would jeopardize earth's alliance with the Asgard."

Harry grinned and lit the cigarette that was still dangling from his mouth as he made his way out of the room.

"In fact, I think he rather liked me."

–

**End of chapter fourteen! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! So, Harry finally gets to meet the Asgard, and he got a clone body to actually study! In the next chapter, tragedy strikes the SGC as Daniel Jackson is hit by a dangerous amount of radiation! Will Harry be there to save the day? Stay tuned!**


	15. Chapter 15

**ZnK here with chapter fifteen! Phew! In this chapter, Harry makes a little discovery about himself while Daniel ends up on the brink of death! Harry also displays a rare, _honest_, kindness!**

–

Harry hummed loudly as he sat in his lab, staring into his microscope. What Thor had said was definitely true. While Harry hadn't been around to take a look at an Asgardian's genes thousands of years ago, anyone could see that their genes today were incredibly damaged.

Reversing the damage would be damn near impossible, especially since he didn't have a sample of an undamaged genome. However, maybe if...

"Bah!" Harry uttered, leaning back from his microscope and lighting the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"_You appear frustrated, master,_" Aceso said, standing behind him, having stood completely still for the last few hours just watching him.

"Yeah, I am," Harry said, nodding slowly. "I really... _really_... want to rub the solution in Thor's face... but, you know, I'm not sure if I can find it."

"_May I offer you some assistance, master?_"

"I don't see how, but sure."

"_It is impossible for you to help the Asgard,_" Aceso said softly. "_It cannot be done._"

Harry blinked at that and spun around on his chair, giving Aceso a queer look.

"How's that offering me assistance?"

"_Have I misunderstood your earlier statements, master?_" Aceso asked curiously. "_I was under the impression that you work harder, and produce better results, when faced with something others deem impossible?_"

"Well, yeah, but it's just kind of annoying when you say it," Harry said, a deadpan look on his face. "After all, I know that you know that I _can_ do it, so..."

"_My apologies, master._"

Harry grunted and looked back into the microscope. He didn't actually look, however, as his eyes closed, and he retreated into his thoughts, working on the problem in his mind while enjoying the peaceful silence.

He flinched when the klaxons suddenly sounded, signaling an incoming wormhole, forcefully bringing him out of his thoughts.

"No one is due back for another hour or two, I think," Harry muttered, cursing the fact that those klaxons were installed. If he got his hands on the one who decided on installing them... "Maybe something happened?"

It wasn't any of his concern, so he just looked at the microscope, then spun on his chair to look at the cut-up Asgard clone on his operating table, furrowing his brow in thought. Then, he dug his hand into his pocket and fished up the crystal Thor had given him. He pressed his fingers down on the correct places, and then said, "Commander Thor."

There was a moment of silence, and then Thor's voice replied, "_Dr. Potter. You report back earlier than I had expected._"

"Yeah, well, I wanted to talk about some things. First of all, how's the android?"

"_It is serving its purpose, thank you. General Hammond has informed me that you are capable of disrupting communications between the Replicator blocks. Am I correct in assuming that this is thanks in a large part to your biological energy manipulation that you humans refer to as magic?_"

"In large part, yes, but not only," Harry said, leaning back in his chair. "It's also thanks to figuring out the frequency of the energy between the blocks, and coming up with a disruptive frequency to counter it. I can get you the data, if you want? I have it stored in my AI."

"_That would be appreciated, Dr. Potter. Am I to understand that you wish for something in return?_"

"Actually, yes," Harry said, turning to look at the clone again. "I've taken a look at your genes, and although I've seen that the damage is almost irreparable, I've come to realize that it's incredibly hard to repair something if you don't know what it should look like when it's repaired. Since we don't have any samples of thirty thousand-year old Asgard DNA here, I don't suppose you have any?"

Thor was quiet for a long time. Harry knew that they did, in fact, possess such a thing, but he was no doubt reluctant to pass such information on to Harry.

"_We do, in fact, have genetic data on the Asgard race from before our program of genetic manipulation became irreversible. It is from a ship launched from our homeworld thirty thousand years ago. Its crew was placed in suspended animation, and there was a failure on the navigational systems. The ship was lost. Through the millennia, it has drifted across the empty expanse between our galaxies until it arrived in yours. We discovered it six months ago. Heimdall has been researching it since them. I believe, Dr. Potter, that we can trade some genetic information for the Replicator frequency,_" Thor said slowly. "_I am surprised, however._"

"Are you?"

"_Are allies not supposed to give information freely?_"

"Yeah, well, I think you're too proud to give up genetic information, so I had to coax it out of you," Harry said, grinning slightly. "Was I wrong?"

Thor was quiet for another few seconds, and then said, "_I shall have an Asgard sent to earth so that they may pick up the Replicator data, in return for the genetic data on the Asgard ancestor._"

"Alright. Could you give me an ETA?"

"_The ship should arrive in a few days, approximately seventy-three hours._"

"Understood. By then, I should have been able to design something that can handle converting Asgard data to human data, and vice versa."

"_Are you capable of such a feat?_"

"There you go, insulting my brain again," Harry said, clicking his tongue. "It'll be finished by the time the ship arrives."

"_Understood, Dr. Potter. I wish you luck._"

"Likewise."

With that, Harry pocketed the crystal again. He sat in silence for a while, and then rolled off toward the door to his lab.

"Alright, might as well go check out what all the noise was about..."

–

"Wow..."

"Yeah..."

"You don't look like you're in such a great shape..."

"Yeah, well, being exposed to a lethal dose of radiation will do that do you."

Harry sat, his arms crossed, in front of Daniel in the infirmary, who was sitting on one of the beds. His hands were bandaged, and he had a few small sores on his cheek. Apparently, there had been an accident involving a new, highly volatile type of naquadah, called naquadria.

"No, I mean, you've been slacking off with your physical training," Harry said, gesturing for Daniel's arms. "Your arms are a bit thinner than then last time I looked you over."

Daniel blinked in surprise at that, his head tilting to the side as he gave Harry a queer look.

"What?"

Harry didn't answer, but instead closed his left eye and looked him over with his right eye.

"But now that I look at you... wow... your body is in quite an uproar. Has anyone explained to you what will happen?"

"No, they've been a bit... uncomfortable around that subject."

"Alright, I guess they left it up to me, since I'm not very uncomfortable in any situation," Harry said, rising from his chair and patting Daniel on the shoulder.

"Er... Are you sure you want to touch me?" Daniel asked, glancing at Harry's hand.

"Oh, radiation doesn't bother me," Harry said with a shrug. "Alright, now, let me tell you how you're going to die unless it's treated."

"Glad you're taking this so well," Daniel muttered.

"Oh, please, we're humans. Dying is probably the only reason most of us are even born," Harry said, waving him off.

"Wow, that's... bleak..."

"Alright, you should be feeling a bit of nausea right around now, correct?" Harry asked, to which Daniel nodded. "Well, this will be followed by tremors, convulsions, and ataxia. Your tissue, all of it, surface tissue, brain tissue, and internal organs will inflame and degrade, a process called necrosis, in case you were wondering. How big a dose were you hit with?"

"Big. I think they said the full-body exposure was over seven Grays?"

"Ooh, that... yeah..." Harry muttered, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. Daniel stared at it.

"Can I have one?"

"You don't smoke..."

"Well, I'm gonna die anyway, so..."

"Your body is a temple, Daniel. Keep it clean 'til it crumbles," Harry said. "So, you're dying, eh? With the dose you were hit with, you can expect it all to happen within, at most, eh, fifteen hours."

"But the question is... _how_ will I die?"

"Well, if you're lucky, it will be somewhat quick by drowning in your own fluids, or you're unlucky and bleed to death."

Daniel nodded slowly, and Harry puffed on his cigarette for a few moments, then smiled slightly.

"Wanna spin around on my chair a few times to cheer you up?"

"No thanks, I'm good..." Daniel said slowly, then looked up at Harry. "We're friends, aren't we?"

"Sure."

"Why haven't you reacted more strongly?"

"You want me to be all distraught and panicky while I'm looking for a way to treat you?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. Daniel blinked at that.

"Er... Not really..."

"Thought so, so keep your mouth shut and just enjoy my calming company."

"I've never felt very calm when you've been around, Harry," Daniel said, and Harry nodded, realizing that he was telling the truth. "Don't you have anything to give me for the nausea?"

"I could give you some Laughing Liquid, or some Plunger, if you want?"

"What's that?"

"Well, the Laughing Liquid is kind of like nitrous oxide. Plunger is amazing for when you're worked up. In relaxes your muscles and gives you a light sense of euphoria. I could give you an Acroshot, too. It's a sleep-inducer that gives the user incredibly vivid dreams."

"Vivid?"

"I once dreamed that I shot across galaxy after galaxy on a pink unicorn, punting little midgets across star systems."

"Wow..."

"The Plunger also numbs your body, so if the pain becomes too much, you can ask me for some," Harry said, patting Daniel on the shoulder again, before plopping down on his chair again. "Well, I gotta get to my lab, try to find some way to fix you," he said, putting his foot against Daniel's bed. "See you around, Daniel!"

With that, Harry pushed off and sent himself rolling toward the doorway. O'Neill was just entering, so as he passed him, Harry gave a quick, "'Lo, Colonel," before kicking off again, turning right as he left the infirmary.

–

When Harry got back to his lab, he immediately gave Aceso orders to get to the infirmary and tend to Daniel, and to try to repair the damages done to the man's body with her healing devices.

He was sitting there, in his chair, contemplating the situation. Then, he blinked and snapped his fingers.

"Rad-shot," he decided, reaching into an inner pocket of his coat and taking out a vial filled with a murky, red liquid. This was the same substance he had used on himself to render him immune to the effects of radiation, so that he could handle the dangerous stuff. "Why am I dumb and didn't think about this before."

"Because of your instincts," came a new voice Harry had never heard before. He spun around and found himself staring at a woman who looked a bit over middle-aged, with middle-length, brown hair, and wearing a fancy suit jacket over a blouse, and a skirt.

"And you are...?" Harry muttered, raising an eyebrow.

"I am Oma."

"Not mine."

The woman blinked at that, tilting her head to the side.

"Oma is Grandmother in German. I made a funny. You're supposed to giggle and tell me I'm hilarious."

"Yes, well..." Oma looked a bit lost, and Harry felt an immense satisfaction. She looked like the kind of woman who was used to being in control of a conversation, so when Harry disrupted that control, it was always amusing to see their reaction.

"Why are you here, how did you get in here, and what's this about my instincts?"

"I am here to stop you, for now," Oma said simply. "Daniel Jackson has the potential to rise to a higher level of plane of existence. I am offering him the choice. You know this. That is why you did not immediately cure him. That is why you still feel a reluctance to heal him. You know he has a bigger part to play."

Harry clicked his tongue and stared at Oma with his right eye.

"You're not human," he decided, narrowing his eyes. "Are you an Ascended?"

Oma smiled at Harry, who snapped his fingers.

"Oma Desala, the one who took in the Harcesis!" he remembered, a grin appearing on his face. "I don't suppose there's any chance you'll let me cut you open and study you?"

"No."

"Figured. So, according to the reports, your, uh, disciples, let's call them, tended to speak in riddles. I would've thought you'd do the same."

"Would you even care what I had to say if I did?"

Harry smirked. "No, I have neither the time nor patience for such nonsense. So, why did you show up here, other than to stop me?"

"I do not believe that you are ready to know."

"That's pretty cryptic... You should just come right out and tell me."

Oma was quiet for a moment, and then said, "Though the flower withers, by that time it has already spread its seeds."

Harry was about to chew her out for speaking like that, but then the meaning of her words hit him, and he blinked.

"Wait, Ancients? Ancients have, er... spread their seeds?"

"Amongst my people, some of them favored humans more than others, and took human form to mate with them. One of them, you might remember from your fables as Merlin."

Harry's eyes widened at that.

"Merlin and those before him made sure our people would continue to exist, and mated with humans. Due to his higher state of being, his offspring received powers, extraordinary powers. They were persecuted by humans as witches. As you know, they have since, wisely, gone into hiding from the rest of the world."

"Then..." Harry muttered, putting a hand on his chin. "Are you saying that all wizards and witches are descendants of Descended Ancients?

"Yes," Oma said, nodding. "And you, Harry Potter, Merlin's descendant, are a wizard of great power, and one who has inherited the most developed brain, very similar to our own."

"Wow," Harry said, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "Now there's a shock and a half if I've ever heard one... So, does that change anything?"

"It changes nothing," Oma said, shaking her head. "However, I must once more urge you not to help Daniel Jackson, unless he specifically asks for it. The choice is his to make."

Harry needed only a second to contemplate, before nodding and turning back to his microscope.

"Done."

–

Once more, Harry found himself in the infirmary. Daniel was no longer capable of sitting. In fact, he was no longer capable of doing much of anything. His entire body was wrapped in bandages, as was his head, and the pieces of skin visible were covered in bloody crusts.

"You look terrible," Harry said with his usual brutal honesty. Daniel gave a pained smile.

"Thanks for sugarcoating it."

"Listen, I have a way to cure you," Harry said, moving over to sit down next to Daniel's bed.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. But I got a visit from a woman, calling herself Oma. She urged me not to heal you immediately. She told me that the choice is yours," Harry said, crossing his arms. "So, here's my question... You want me to heal you?"

Daniel's mouth moved slightly, but no words came out. Nonetheless, Harry understood what he was saying. _Not yet_.

"Don't worry, mate," Harry said, reaching out and touching Daniel's shoulder. "If you change your mind, I'm here."

Footsteps were heard, and Harry turned around to see Carter approaching. She was looking on the verge of tears before she even approached, so Harry could guess what would happen once she actually sat down.

"Harry," she greeted shakily, nodding at the mad scientist, who got off the stool he'd been sitting on and made a gesture for it. Carter nodded in thanks and moved over, sitting down and looking at Daniel. "Just so you know, Jonas had a change of heart. He stole some naquadria for us. He took a big risk, he said it was because of what you did. I think it could be important, and I wanted you to know that."

Carter screwed her eyes shut for a second, and it seemed she couldn't maintain her composure any longer, as tears started flowing.

"You have an effect on people, Daniel... The way you look at things, it changed me too... I see what really matters... I don't know why we wait to tell people how we really feel... I guess I hoped that you always knew..."

Carter broke off there and buried her face in one of her hands, crying. Harry stood to the side, his arms crossed, just watching. Daniel had great friends, but... none of them understood what was going on. They were thinking he was going to die, but...

"Don't mourn," Harry said suddenly, making Carter look up at him in surprise, as though she had forgotten he was there.

"What?" she choked out.

"Daniel's journey isn't ending here," Harry said, a small smile appearing on his face.

"What do you mean?"

Harry's smile widened. "You'll see."

Still giving him strange looks, Carter got off the stool and walked off. Fraiser came in not long after that and started changing Daniel's bandages. Harry just watched. He didn't help, but he ordered Aceso, who was standing in a corner, to help. The AI had tried every tool she possessed, but none of them worked. Therefore, she had moved to stand in the corner to await further orders.

Soon enough, just as Fraiser finished changing Daniel's bandages, Teal'c came in, holding an Egyptian funerary statue. Fraiser gave him a pat on the arm as she left, getting a bow in return. Teal'c held up the statue and looked at it.

"You once gave me this. You said that its spirit would one day serve its owner in the afterlife," Teal'c said and set the statue down next to Daniel's bed. "If you are to die, Daniel Jackson, I wish you to know that I believe that the fight against the Goa'uld will have lost one of its greatest warriors," he said as a muscle in his face twitched, his eyes showing a large amount of sorry. "And I will have lost one of my greatest friends."

Teal'c raised his arm across his chair in a warrior's salute.

As Teal'c left the infirmary, Harry watched the Jaffa go, and then turned to look at Daniel again. He blinked once, and then found himself standing in what looked like Daniel's office. The walls weren't visible, however, and it was all blackness around them. In the office stood Daniel, and Oma.

"Hello?" Harry said uncertainly, looking around. "How did I get here?"

"Your impressive telepathic skills allowed you to enter Daniel's mind," Oma explained, smiling. "I called you in here."

"So, wait, he's actually here?" Daniel asked, pointing at Harry. "He can hear me?"

"He is the only one who can at this point," Oma said, nodding. "And he is the only one who can explain this to you."

"Explain what?" Harry asked, tilting his head to the side.

"The choice," Oma said, turning her back on them. "I will be waiting."

In the blink of an eye, Oma disappeared.

"Strange woman, no?" Harry said, pointing at the spot where Oma had once stood.

"You have no idea. You said she came to see you? Did she give you little riddles and poems, too?"

"Nah. I think she knew I'd cut her open for wasting my time if she did," Harry said with a shrug. "So, I take it you're having problems?"

"Oma wants me to make the choice. She also claims that the key is being honest with yourself," Daniel explained, running a hand through his hair. "And if I have to be honest with myself, I don't think I'm worthy of Ascending."

"Why not?"

"Well, look at my life... I mean, I was living happily on Abydos, I could have spent the rest of my life there, but I couldn't leave it well enough alone. I unburied the Stargate, and because of that Sha're..." Daniel sighed, shaking his head. "I couldn't save Sha're, I couldn't save Sarah..."

"Sarah?"

"The woman who was taken over by Osiris?"

"Ah, her."

"You tell me, do I deserve it?"

"Honestly?" Harry asked, thinking about it. "Yes."

Daniel gave him a skeptical look. "Do you actually mean that, or do you just want to see how someone Ascends?"

"Although that would be an amazing sight, Daniel, do I really look like the kind of guy who would lie to a friend just to make them feel better?" Harry asked, and made sure to emphasize by reaching up and turning his bolt.

"Point," Daniel conceded, nodding. "By the way, you're a smart guy, maybe you can help me figure out what Oma meant?"

"Meant by what?"

"I heard this from a monk at Kheb, too, and it's really stuck to me," Daniel said, his brow furrowing. "He and Oma said, 'If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.' No idea what they mean by that."

"Well, it's life, inn'it?" Harry said simply. "Or rather, the purpose."

"Purpose?"

"Well, if you know your destination from the get-go, there's no real point in making the journey," Harry said, shrugging. "I mean, you can't find out what your purpose is unless you go looking for it. If you know it from the start, it takes all the challenge out of it."

Daniel was quiet, and Harry walked up to him, grinning slightly at him.

"The journey is everything, I guess you could say," the mad scientist said. "You say you don't feel you're worthy of Ascending. Why?"

"Because my life has been filled with failure," Daniel said, but when Harry opened his mouth, he raised his hands and said, "Alright, maybe not _just_ failures, but you know what I mean. It's not like I've made a big difference."

"But you have," Harry said. "Just imagine it. Imagine if you had never figured out how to operate the Stargate... Humans would never have gone to other planets, and the tens of threats to earth that you yourself have helped avert would have wiped us all out or enslaved us. Look at the big picture, Daniel. By cracking a code, you changed earth's destiny."

Daniel's eyes widened. Harry doubted he had ever thought about things like that.

"I'm not easy to impress, but I give credit where credit is due," Harry said, grinning again. "You deserve credit, Daniel. Lots of it. Like I said, you changed billions of lives with your discovery. You changed _my_ life. If you hadn't figured out the Stargate, I would have still been sitting in my lab in England, probably dissecting passersby out of sheer boredom. Because you cracked the code, I have all of that," he said and made a gesture for the space above them, "to study, much sooner than it would have been had you not."

Harry reached out and patted Daniel on the shoulder.

"You gave me the whole universe to study, you helped me in my never-ending quest for knowledge. For that, you deserve to see what's on that side."

"What side?"

"The side that holds all the knowledge," Harry explained, holding his hand out for Daniel to shake. "Wait for me there. We'll meet and compare notes."

Daniel stared at Harry's hand for a moment, his brow furrowed again.

"Am I ready for this?"

"That's for you to decide, I think. Like Oma said, the choice is yours."

A blink of an eye was all it took for them to end up standing in what appeared to be the Gate Room, but judging by the endless blackness where the walls should have been, they were still in Daniel's mind. On the ramp leading up to the Gate stood Oma, smiling at them. Daniel stared at her for a moment, then turned back to Harry and reached out, shaking his hand.

"See you on the other side, I guess."

"Take care, Daniel. Don't worry, I'll handle things on this plane. Leave it to me."

"That thought scares me," Daniel said with a small grin. On the ramp, Oma turned into some kind of glowing, white creature, drifting back into the Stargate, disappearing and leaving an active wormhole. "Tell the others not to worry."

"I will."

As Daniel started making his way up the ramp, Harry blinked, and once again found himself standing in the infirmary. SG-1 was gathered around Daniel's bed, along with Fraiser, and Jacob Carter, who stood over Daniel with a Goa'uld healing device. How they believe that it would work when not even Aceso's did, he had no idea. Nonetheless, Harry made his way over and grabbed Jacob's wrist, pulling it away.

"What are you doing?" O'Neill demanded angrily.

"He's leaving," Harry said, gesturing for Daniel. "It's what he wants, so don't try to stop him."

"Will someone tell me what's going on here?" Jacob asked, confused.

"Let him go," Harry said, releasing his grip on Jacob's wrist and turning to Daniel, smiling. "We're about to see something amazing."

Just then, Daniel exhaled heavily, and the EKG flatlined.

"Harry!" Fraiser yelled, starting to move to resuscitate Daniel, but Harry held up a hand. Just then, Daniel's body started to glow. A strange, white being of pure energy rose from his body and ascended toward the ceiling. Harry smiled in fascination and raised his hand in a wave of goodbye to Daniel, who he had to admit had become a rather good friend to him in his time at the SGC. After all, he was one of the smart ones, yet he was very well-aware of the fact that he wasn't the smartest.

"What's happening?" O'Neill asked in amazement.

"The next step of his journey," Harry said, his smile turning into a grin. "He's Ascending."

"How do you know?"

"We talked."

–

There was a knock on Harry's door, and at his urging, it opened to show a young man, probably five or six years older than Harry, who he had never seen at the SGC before.

"Hi, er, Dr. Potter?" the man asked, and Harry nodded. The man walked up to him and held out his hand. "Jonas Quinn. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"You're the guy from that planet-whatever-it-was-called, where Daniel had his accident," Harry said, nodding as he shook Jonas' hand. "I heard you brought us some naquadria."

"Yes. Judging by what I've heard, it's not quite as powerful as that keron energy you've discovered, but I'm hoping it will help your people."

"Expecting something in return, no doubt?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"How did you know?"

"Almost everyone wants something in return, Mr. Quinn."

"Ah, call me Jonas."

"Then call me Harry. But I'm really not."

"What?"

"A pun. Forget it. This is not my funny-week, it seems," Harry said, shrugging. "So, what did you ask in return?"

"I asked that, if earth could build defense shields using the naquadria, they would share them with Kelowna."

"That was a rather small demand. I think you could have gotten away with-"

Harry was enveloped in a bright light, and when it cleared, he found himself once more standing on the bridge of an Asgard ship. He blinked slowly, then turned to the Asgard sitting in the command chair.

"Greetings, Dr. Potter," the Asgard said. "I am Freyr. Supreme Commander Thor asked me to exchange data with you."

"Ah, yes, of course," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a device, which looked strange to anyone who may have been looking at it. It was about the size of a brick, with a small number of buttons on it, along with a small display. He grabbed the bottom of one end and pulled out what looked like a CD tray. "Do you have the crystal with the data?"

"I have it here," Freyr said, holding out the white crystal in his hand. Harry took it and placed it on the tray, before pressing some of the buttons on the device, before pressing a button labeled 'OK.' He waited for a moment as a large amount of data appeared on the display, followed by a beep. Then, he started pressing buttons again, repeating the process.

"There," Harry said once the device beeped again. He removed the crystal and handed it over to Freyr. "I've swapped the data on the crystal with all the data I have thus far gathered on the Replicators."

"The Asgard appreciate your help, Dr. Potter," Freyr said with a bow of his head. "We sincerely hope that you will succeed in finding a way to repair the damages to our genomes."

"Well, with my latest discovery, I'd be a disappointment if I didn't," Harry said with a small grin.

Freyr bowed his head again, and Harry suddenly found himself enveloped in a bright light, and then once more found himself sitting in his lab, in front of a visibly surprised Jonas.

"I have got to create shielding against unwanted Asgard beaming..." Harry muttered to himself, pocketing device.

–

**End of chapter fifteen! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Thor gets captured by Anubis himself. Given his quickly developing friendship with the Supreme Commander, Harry takes exception! Stay tuned!**


	16. Chapter 16

**ZnK here with chapter sixteen! You should be thankful that I took the time to write this on my birthday. Turned 23 today! However, even though it's customary to receive gifts on one's birthday, I decided to give you guys one instead! In this chapter, Harry and Frank go on a rescue mission to save Thor, and Harry meets the mysterious Anubis!**

–

"You know what? To hell with it!" Harry said as he sat in his lab. He leaned back in his chair and puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette for a few moments, then fished the communication crystal out of his pocket, pressing down on it. "Hey, Thor?"

He waited for a good two minutes before trying again, "Thor, mate, do you hear me?"

There was still no response. Harry sighed as he pocketed the crystal again and got up, stretching.

"And here I had a brilliant idea..."

Harry made his way toward the door, but then stopped, his eyes widening.

"And now I had an even more brilliant idea!" he exclaimed, spinning around and heading back to his workbench, putting out his cigarette and immediately lighting another one, before taking out his blood-sampling kit. "I hope this will be approved. Don't want to get chewed out for it..."

"_Master, why do you help those tiny meatbags?_" Frank asked, standing in the corner of the lab with Aceso. "_Would it not be better to step on them?_"

"For you, maybe, but these people are about as close to intellectual equals as I'm gonna get," Harry said, smiling at Frank. "If I can get them up to be as close to physical equals as I'm going to get as well, then I will be one very happy man."

He sat and worked in silence for a while, the only noises in the room being the pleased noises he gave off every once in a while after he drew blood from himself and worked his magic with it.

"_Permission to voice a suspicion, master?_" Aceso asked a few hours later, which got a nod from Harry. "_Is it so that you are merely doing this in the hopes of seeing an attractive Asgard of the female gender, in order to fornicate with her?_"

Harry paused and slowly turned to look at Aceso, blinking at her.

"_Because that would be very interesting to watch, master._"

Harry didn't respond to that, instead turning back to what he was doing. Frank, however, had no problem voicing his disgust.

"_Why would anyone wish to watch two meatbags swapping bodily fluids?_"

"_I find such an act to be very attractive,_" Aceso said simply. "_The concepts of lust and intercourse are very interesting._"

"_Master,_" Frank said, addressing Harry, "_why did you create a perverted AI?_"

"I didn't," Harry said, trying his best to ignore what Aceso had just said. "As with you, I allowed Aceso to develop her own personality."

"_Master, is it possible for you to show me-_"

"Alright, that's it!" Harry said, shooting to his feet. "I'm obviously not going to get any work done listening to this! I'm going for a walk, and when I come back, I want to hear no talk of sex or anything of the sort, from any of you, understood?!"

"_Understood, master,_" both AI answered in unison.

Harry scoffed and left his lab, shaking his head to himself.

He wandered aimlessly through the SGC for a good while, until he finally stopped outside Daniel's former office, at which point he realized that he had been so eager to get away from Aceso that he had completely forgotten his chair. Not only that, but he had been so disturbed that he actually forgot to simply order her to be quiet!

He sighed to himself as he lit another cigarette. He heard movement inside Daniel's office and looked inside, to see Carter standing inside, looking over a few of Daniel's old books. Her eyes looked like she was barely holding back tears.

"Hey," Harry said, rolling his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. "You know, no matter how many time you come in here, he's not going to be here to greet you."

"I know, I just..." Carter broke off, shaking her head. "It just feels weird... Everyone keeps working, keeps going on with their daily lives as if nothing has happened..."

"I can't say that I perfectly understand the grieving process, but could that just be how they handle it?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Harry... We didn't even have a memorial service..."

"Why would we?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's not like Daniel is dead."

"Harry, we saw him flatline."

"And we saw him Ascend. One who Ascends isn't dead. The dead can only manifest in the physical world if they leave an imprint of their soul when they pass on. They cannot return or interact with the living once they've moved on. Oma came to me, and she came to Daniel. She isn't dead, and neither is Daniel. They just exist in a plane not visible to us," Harry said as he walked inside. Carter gave him a look.

"How do you know what the dead can and can't do?"

"I've conducted quite a lot of research into the subject," Harry said with a shrug. "Besides, you've met an Ascended before, haven't you? That bloke who stalked you, who built that Stargate in your basement. He Descended, so you know there's a chance that Daniel will decide that plane isn't for him and come back."

"So, what are we supposed to do?"

"Just wait," Harry said with a smile. "And even if he was dead, do you really think Daniel would have wanted you to mope around and act all... not-the-Carter-we-know-y?"

Carter gave a small smile at Harry's degrading himself to using simpler words in an effort to sound funny just to cheer her up. He didn't know why he did it. Probably because Carter, like Daniel, was smart, and he liked her...

"I suppose not..."

"Major, Doctor."

They both looked to the doorway to see Hammond standing there. He kept up his usual look, but Harry could see that he too was mourning.

"Sir," Carter greeted, wiping her eyes.

"I just wanted to inform you that Colonel O'Neill has requested that SG-1 remain on active duty while we try to find a replacement for Dr. Jackson," Hammond said as he stepped into the room. "Usually, I would just have Dr. Potter take his place, but you're not the most active off-world agent."

"That's true. I'd be a lousy replacement, anyway," Harry said, waving him off. "Too much work helping my new friends, and coming up with counter-measures against their unexpected beaming..."

"Yes, well-" Hammond started, but was interrupted when the klaxons signaling the Gate activating started sounding.

"Unauthorized off-world activation!" Sergeant Davis' voice sounded through the SGC, right before all the lights went out.

"What the hell is going on?" Hammond asked, looking around.

"I think... _think_, mind you... that the power just went out," Harry said unnecessarily, as Carter picked up the phone, trying it.

"The phones are down, too."

"General Hammond to the Gate Room," Sergeant Davis said as the emergency power came on, "repeat, General Hammond to the Gate Room."

"Let's get up there," Hammond said as they all left Daniel's office.

When they got to the Gate Room, a large amount of SF's were aiming their weapons at the Gate. Or rather, what had come out of it.

"Freyr!" Harry greeted happily as Hammond ordered the SF's to stand down.

"Dr. Potter," Freyr greeted with a nod, before turning to Carter and Hammond. "Major Carter, General Hammond. I apologize for our absence of late, especially considering the help you have lent us, but our war with the Replicators has reached a critical stage. The android, Reese, has served us greatly in understanding the Replicators better, and with the frequency data Dr. Potter has provided us with, we should be able to construct a weapon suitable for the task of destroying them once and for all."

"Well, you won't actually be destroying them. You'll just make them, you know, harmless," Harry said, to which Freyr nodded.

"Yes, we gathered that from the data you gave us. That is why, Dr. Potter, when the time comes, we are wondering if you would be able to allow your AI, designation Frank, to annihilate the hive minds of the Replicators once we have neutralized them?"

"He would be more than happy do assist," Harry said with a smile.

"Thank you. Now, for more pressing matters," Freyr said, turning to look at Hammond again as the blast doors opened on the other side of the room, and O'Neill and Teal'c entered. "There has been an incident with the Goa'uld."

"An incident?" O'Neill asked curiously.

"Commander Thor has been killed."

It truly showed how shocked Harry was by that statement, when the cigarette in his mouth fell to the ground, his jaw slackening.

"What?" he breathed in surprise. He had only known Thor for a short time, but he considered the Asgard a good friend!

"Killed?" Carter asked, her eyes wide as well. "How?"

"The Goa'uld attacked a planet under our protection, and Commander Thor was dispatched with the only ship available. We expected the Goa'uld to retreat once we made our presence felt, but they did not. The Asgard ship was destroyed during the ensuing battle."

"Is not Asgard military technology far superior to that of the Goa'uld?" Teal'c asked, raising a curious eyebrow.

"Their new shields are more advanced than we first believed, and it appears they have upgraded their weapons as well," Freyr said slowly, sounding grave. "We can no longer be confident of victory when dealing with superior numbers."

"So, in other words, the protected planets are no longer protected?" O'Neill guessed.

"Including earth," Carter said.

"Our ability to enforce the treaty in this galaxy will depend greatly on the outcome of our battle with the Replicators. However, in the meantime, we do have another problem. An Asgard scientist has been left stranded in the research facility beneath the surface of the planet in question. We would like you to mount a rescue mission."

"Done," Harry said immediately, turning to look at Hammond. "Think we can speed up the construction of the Prometheus, General?"

"Even if we did, we wouldn't be able to finish it in time," Hammond said, shaking his head. "Maybe if you had made it smaller, but..."

"Pish! I don't do things small," Harry said, waving him off. "What about the Ha'tak at the Alpha Site?"

"That too is not operational, having long since been stripped of its parts and studied," Teal'c spoke up, which made Harry hum. Before he could suggest anything else, Freyr spoke up.

"There is no need for a grand ship, Dr. Potter. We have no ships available, and we understand you have a Goa'uld cargo ship at your disposal?"

"Yeah, it's a beauty," Harry said, nodding. "You should see it, I upgraded its shields, gave it some powerful weapons..." he said and turned to look at the others. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going, with or without permission."

"The research being conducted on this planet is vital to the future of the Asgard," Freyr said. "We would be forever in your debt."

Freyr gave Harry a bow, while Harry himself just grinned.

–

"We are approaching the Adara system," Teal'c announced as he and Carter sat in the only two chairs in the cargo ship. Harry stood behind them, and O'Neill was in the cargo room, doing... whatever, not like Harry cared. "Two motherships orbit the second planet."

"We won't be able to activate the cloak until we come out of hyperspace," Carter said as O'Neill came walking up, apparently having finished doing... whatever... "There'll be a brief interval where they might detect us."

"How brief?" O'Neill wanted to know.

"Just a few seconds. The odds of them spotting us are pretty slim."

"How slim?"

"Hardly worth mentioning, sir."

"And yet, you did mention it."

"Yeah, I'm beginning to wish I hadn't."

As they came out of hyperspace, they immediately cloaked, no doubt quick enough to avoid being detected. When they approached the planet, however, Harry's eye landed on one of the motherships. He detected a presence, which was definitely not a Goa'uld.

"Thor's on that ship," he announced, which made everyone's eyes widen.

"How do you-" O'Neill started, but stopped when Harry pointed at his eye. "Oh yeah, magic eyeball. But how are we supposed to get him out?"

"The Goa'uld aren't protected against biological energy manipulation," Harry said with a small grin as Frank, who had also come with them, moved up to stand next tohim. "I'm going to Apparate over there with Frank, take out their shields, rescue Thor, and then you can ring us out."

"What's App-"

Harry didn't allow Carter to finish the question, instead grabbing Frank and Apparating away immediately with a sharp crack.

They reappeared in one of the ring rooms on board the Ha'tak he had focused on, and noticed that they were alone. Not for long, however...

As expected, three Jaffa came rushing into the room, no doubt drawn there by the crack of Apparition.

Harry was a blur as he moved, palming two of them in the chest, before grabbing the third Jaffa's staff and wrenching it out of his hands. He spun once, and stopped with the head of the staff pressing against the Jaffa's face. Then, he fired it, blowing the Jaffa's head off.

"_Wonderful takedowns, master,_" Frank praised happily. "_Am I to assume that we are to wreak havoc on this ship?_"

"That assumption would be correct, Frank," Harry said with a smirk, lighting a cigarette. "Go and create one hell of a distraction, while I go and take out the shields. After studying them, of course."

If Frank could do so, Harry was sure that the AI would grin, judging by the glee he showed as he took his Ma'Tok Gatling cannon off his back and walked off, having already initiated eradication procedures.

"_Dr. Potter?_" came a somewhat jovial voice from Harry's pocket. Harry blinked and fished out the communicator Thor had given him.

"Am I to assume that you are the Asgard Heimdall?" Harry asked as he pressed down on the crystal.

"_Indeed I am. Have you heard of me?_"

"Thor told me about what you're doing down there," Harry said, walking off. "What do you need?"

"_Since your biological energy manipulation was perfectly capable of penetrating the Goa'uld shields, can I assume that you will be rescuing Thor?_"

"Do you have beaming technology down there?"

"_I do, Dr. Potter. However, I am unable to penetrate the Goa'uld shields with it._"

"Well then, I'm actually on my way to knock out the shields. I had been planning on bringing Thor to the ring room afterward to bring him to the cargo ship, but if you have beaming, then that's even better."

"_Understood, Dr. Potter. I will beam you out as soon as I detect that the shields are down._"

Harry nodded, even if Heimdall couldn't see it, and kept walking. He felt a small tremor in the floor, suggesting that Frank had blown something up somewhere on the ship.

It was a good thing for Harry, as all the Jaffa were drawn to Frank, allowing Harry to move around freely.

When Harry reached the corridor leading to the shield generator room, a hissing sound was heard, making him look around.

"Gas," he decided, clicking his tongue. "How primitive..."

Harry took a whiff of the gas that flooded the corridor and screwed his eyes shut in discomfort. He took a syringe out of his pocket and unbuttoned his shirt, opening it and sticking the syringe straight into his side, before pulling the plunger, filling the syringe with a dark liquid. He pulled out the syringe and then stabbed it straight into his heart, pushing the plunger.

"Ugh..." Harry uttered as he dropped to his knees, his eyes still shut as he moved his body to adjust to the feeling spreading through it. "That's disgusting..." he mumbled, pulling out the syringe and putting on a protective cap on the needle, before pocketing it.

After a few seconds of adjustment, Harry got to his feet again and proceeded into the shield generator room.

"That's a big generator," Harry said as he entered, seeing the massive, glowing construct maintaining the shields. Thankfully, the gas that had been flooding the area had knocked out the Jaffa inside, so he didn't have to bother with them. Therefore, he dug a handful of keron blocks out of his pocket and started assembling something shaped like a brick out of it. Once he was done, he rolled up his sleeve and grabbed a keron block attached to the control device. While the other blocks were of a dark, blueish purple hue, this block was pitch black. He attached it to the brick, then tapped in a few commands on the control device, activating the minor AI installed in the keron block. Then, he tossed the keron brick at the shield generator, to which it attached like a magnet.

"Heimdall," Harry said into the crystal he took out of his pocket.

"_Dr. Potter?_"

"Since your communicator can penetrate the shields, am I correct in assuming that your sensors can do the same?"

"_You are correct, Dr. Potter. What can I help you with?_"

"Can you figure out where Thor is?"

"_He is currently held on the same level as you, Dr. Potter. More specifically, he is being held in the fifth cargo hold to the left from the exit from the shield generator room. Why?_"

"I just want to make sure he's alright before we beam him out," Harry said. "Can you locate my AI as well, or is he invisible to your sensors?"

"_Usually, he would be, but I can see that you have powered his defenses with keron energy absorbers. All Asgard sensors have been calibrated to detect keron._"

"Glad to hear it," Harry said. "Then when the shields go down, make sure to beam Frank away as well. Otherwise, he'll just hijack the ship and come after you for revenge for leaving him behind."

"_Understood, Dr. Potter._"

Harry pocketed the crystal, and then made his way out of the shield generator room.

"Frank, how are you holding up?" he asked into the control device as he walked.

"_Wonderfully, master! That violent video game you installed in my system has given me an untold amount of inspiration for various methods of execution! And thanks to the large amount of snake-infested flesh sacks on this ship, I am allowed to try it all out, perfecting my techniques. Thank you, master, for bringing this unit with you!_"

"Yeah, well, hurry up and satisfy your violent urges," Harry said with a chuckle. "As soon as I get to Thor, we're leaving this ship."

"_Understood, master. Increasing speed by fifty percent! Prejudice set to maximum!_"

Harry shook his head as he jogged off.

–

When Harry got to the cargo hold, he found two Jaffa standing guard outside. He shot his hands out, flinging two magical scalpels at them, and watched as their throats were sliced open. Seeing many life signs inside the cargo hold, Harry didn't slow down as he reached the door and rushed inside.

Thor was on a hard bed, his body covered by a naquadah casing, keeping him strapped down. Standing by Thor's head was a cloaked and hooded figure that Harry didn't recognize. His soul was incredibly large and wild, and it was very unruly, as though it was trying to escape from within the folds of the cloak. There was also a total of five Jaffa in the room.

Harry charged right up to the cloaked figure, who turned to him just in time to cop a palm to the chest. The figure gave a pained cry as he was launched through the air, straight into the wall. Now, the mad scientist moved, a blur of motion, as he shot between the Jaffa, snapping necks and shattering rib cages with his powerful blows.

When the last Jaffa went down, Harry noticed that the cloaked figure was getting up. Harry ran up to him and slammed his palm into his chest again, smashing him back into the wall hard enough to dent it, before unleashing his wavelength into the figure again, getting another cry of pain from him.

"Isn't this curious...?" Harry muttered, looking into the hood, to see not a face, but rather a swirling, silvery substance. "You don't quite belong here, do you?"

"Figured that out, did you?" the figure said as he raised his hand. Harry, however, was quicker, grabbing the hand and swinging the figure over his head, down into the floor, where he knelt and slammed another palm into his chest, making him once more cry out.

"Who are you?" Harry asked coldly, staring down at the figure. "You possess technology capable of protecting you even against my strength, but not quite capable of protecting you against my wavelength..."

"I am Anubis," the figure on the floor said. "And there is nothing you can do to kill me, so there is no need to try."

"I take it you're not solid," Harry said, still holding the System Lord down. "So I can't dissect you, but- Hey!" He unleashed his wavelength once more as the System Lord made to rise. "Stay still, or I might hurt you. Just lay there and let me examine you for a moment."

Anubis made to move again, but Harry, who had had enough of his bothersome struggling, unleashed another blast of wavelength, before raising his foot and stomping it down on Anubis' hand, effectively crushing the hand-device under his glove.

After looking over Anubis for a few moments, Harry decided he'd had enough. Therefore, he picked Anubis up and flung him into the wall, before rushing over to Thor's bed, kicking the locking mechanism to pieces and lifting the cover, exposing Thor. He picked up the Asgard, and then rushed out of the cargo hold.

"Hey, are you strong enough to hold on?" he asked Thor, who slowly opened his eyes.

"Dr. Potter," Thor said, his monotone voice holding a small note of surprise. "I did not expect to see you here."

"Well, surprise. Now, are you strong enough to hold on? I'm going to place you on my back."

"I believe I am strong enough, Dr. Potter," Thor said, and Harry nodded, shifting the Asgard so he was riding piggy back. Then, he pulled back his sleeve and opened the control device.

"Alright, Frank, get ready for transport," he spoke into the control device, before pushing a button on it.

The ship rocked as the keron brick exploded, effectively blowing the shield generator to smithereens. A millisecond later, they were enveloped in a bright light, and found themselves in the cargo ship they had arrived in with Frank. Another second passed, and then there was another flash of light. When it died down, Heimdall, O'Neill, Carter, and Teal'c had joined them in the cargo ship, along with a control panel and a stasis pod containing a gray-skinned person, standing taller than even Harry, with a large, bulging head.

"A relative of yours?" Harry asked Thor, gesturing for the stasis pod.

"This is the Asgard from whom you received a genetic sample, Dr. Potter," Thor spoke weakly.

"Thor!" O'Neill said in an elated voice. "How are you feeling, buddy?"

"I am well. It is good to see you, O'Neill," Thor said, nodding to O'Neill.

"Dr. Potter," Heimdall said, catching Harry's attention. "I am sure that your team can tend to Commander Thor. In the meantime, I would like your assistance with adapting the stasis pod to the cargo ship's power supply."

"Alright," Harry said, handing Thor over to O'Neill, before following Heimdall to the engines. O'Neill, meanwhile, gave Frank a long stare, taking in the blood spatters on his endoskeleton.

"So... you won?" he asked the AI, who slowly turned to look at him.

"_Fatality, meatbag._"

"Teal'c," Harry said, poking his head in from the doorway. "Maybe you'd like to take us-"

The ship suddenly shook as it was hit by a blast from the Ha'tak above them. Teal'c immediately rushed over to the controls, flying the ship.

"Once we clear the atmosphere, we should be able to make our escape," Teal'c announced. The ship rocked again. "They appear to be able to detect us despite the cloak. The shields are holding, however."

"They should!" Harry barked from the engine room. "Do you think I would design mediocre shielding?!"

"If we take more hits, the shields will lose power," Teal'c said as Harry stumbled out of the engine room.

"Well, fire back!" he barked, making his way over to the other chair, sitting down. "I installed weapons for a reason!"

As the cargo ship cleared the atmosphere, the top of the pyramid shape split in half and opened, allowing a mount with two GAU-8 Ma'Tok cannons, also known as Avenger Cannons, on it to rise out of it and take aim at the Ha'tak, before unleashing a veritable beam of massive staff blasts, peppering the Ha'tak shields.

"Their shields are holding," Teal'c said, which made Harry twitch.

"Tch, I'm transferring power from the cloak and hyperdrive to the cannons."

"Woah, woah, woah!" O'Neill said suddenly. "Then how are we supposed to get away?"

"We'll get away once that mothership is blown into another galaxy," Harry said simply.

They didn't have to fight anymore, however, as three ships came out of hyperspace near them, three O'Neill-class Asgard ships, to be exact.

"Oh, hey," Harry said, his eyebrows rising in surprise as he ceased firing. "I'm picking up a transmission to the Goa'uld ship."

"_This is Freyr of the Asgard. The vessels you face are far superior to the one you attacked. Challenge us at your own peril._"

The Goa'uld Ha'tak was unmoving for a few seconds, but then it moved away, jumping into hyperspace.

"Colonel O'Neill," Heimdall said, coming out of the engine room. "Would it be possible for the Asgard to borrow the services of Dr. Potter for a while? We would like to discuss some matters with him."

O'Neill blinked at that, then looked at Harry, who nodded.

"Oh, sure. Just make sure to bring him back with a full tank."

"Pardon?"

"Earth humor," Harry explained, smiling as he got out of the chair and moved over to Heimdall. "You wouldn't understand."

With that, the two Asgard, the equipment, Harry, and Frank were enveloped in a bright light as they were beamed away.

–

"You have a beautiful planet," Harry spoke, standing by a window in the genetics building on Othalla, the Asgard homeworld. With him were Thor and Heimdall.

"Thank you, Dr. Potter," Thor said. "However, that was not the sole reason why asked you to come."

"Yeah, I figured you guys weren't the type to bring me here just to brag about a killer view," Harry said, smiling, before turning around to face the two Asgard. "You think I've made a breakthrough when it comes to your cloning problem, and you would like my help fighting the Replicators."

"Your deductive skills are impressive," Heimdall said brightly. "Yes, you have shown yourself capable of coming up with solutions to problems much quicker than even the Asgard. Therefore, we believed you to have done the same in this situation."

"Well, I did come up with a solution, but I don't know if you'd deem it a taint or not," Harry said, turning to look over the view again. "I have managed to break down the cell-regeneration in your clones that permit you to live so long before needing to switch bodies, and I perfected it. I tested it on myself, as I always do, and it has given me an accelerated regenerative healing factor that is much faster than even a Goa'uld."

"And you can grant us this ability?"

"I can. However, it only works if it bonds to someone of Ancient descent. My genes are compatible with the properties that permit complete cell-regeneration."

"I see!" Heimdall said, putting a hand on his chin. "You wish to add your genes to the next batch of Asgard clones, do you not?"

"That I do," Harry said, smiling brightly as he once more turned to face the two Asgard. It felt so nice meeting people who were close to his level of thinking. "With my genes, not only will you possess a cell-regeneration that should be able to repair your genome, but you should also be able to utilize my biological energy manipulation."

"Are you certain, Dr. Potter?" Thor asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Not only that, but if you make new clones with my genetic template merged with your own, which I have attempted and found to be compatible, then you should be able to construct new bodies from scratch, of your own design."

"And you say you have tested this on yourself?" Heimdall asked curiously. "Would you care to demonstrate?"

"Certainly," Harry said, fishing a scalpel out of his pocket. He rolled up his right sleeves and cut deeply into his arm, along the entire forearm, then showed how the cut closed itself a few seconds later.

"We have never before been capable of natural cell-regeneration on that level," Thor spoke, and though his voice was monotone as usual, Harry could hear the amazement in it.

"Will they be able to reproduce through meiosis?" Heimdall asked curiously, to which Harry shrugged.

"Like I said, you'll build the bodies from scratch. If you design them to be able to fornicate, they'll be able to fornicate. I actually had that problem when I made my own clone, but I fixed it."

"Would you care to oversee the process for us, Dr. Potter?" Thor asked. "Although the Asgard are vastly superior to most races in all fields of science, genetics are without a doubt where we are behind, compared to our other skills, and you have proven yourself to be an accomplished geneticist."

"It would be my honor to help you," Harry said with a smile, reaching up and turning his bolt. "I'll even throw in an anti-venom sack for you."

"Anti-venom sack?" Heimdall asked in confusion.

"I implanted an organ of my own design in my body, right here," Harry said, pointing at his side. "Unfortunately, it's incompatible with the rest of my body, so I can get blood flowing in, but it will need to be dissolved there. Whenever a venom or toxin enters my body, it is processed in the anti-venom sack, where it quickly creates a cure that will render me immune to it. From that, all I have to do is stick a syringe into it, extract the cure, and pump it into my heart."

"Why have you not simply connected it to your heart, Dr. Potter?"

"Because, if I did, I run the risk of it channeling the toxin to my heart as well."

"I see."

"A conversation is peaceful, but we still run the risk of being attacked by the Replicators," Thor spoke up suddenly. "It would be for the best if we got to work right away."

"Agreed," Harry said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

–

**End of chapter sixteen! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry helps the Asgard with the Replicators once and for all, and comes back to find that Anubis is threatening earth! Stay tuned!**


	17. Chapter 17

**ZnK here with chapter seventeen! Phew, that took a bit of time to draw. Couldn't really figure out how I wanted Harry involved in this particular episode. Anyway, in this chapter, Harry spends some time on Othala, comes home to finish construction on the X-302, comes up with an idea for Frank, and finds out about a threat to earth!**

–

Harry was very lucky he had so many pre-rolled cigarettes. After all, he hadn't expected to stay on Othala for so long... He had been there fore three weeks now, working with the Asgard. He liked it here. Although he hated the thought of someone being identical to him, he felt an... attachment to the Asgard. After all, they were very smart, almost on his level of intelligence. To have them be near his physical equals as well... It felt amazing. Of course, given the fact that Harry was constantly improving his body and exercising his brain, he would always continue to grow, but still...

"Dr. Potter," came Thor's voice from behind him, which made him smirk.

"Thor!" Harry said happily, spinning around from where he was sitting at a work station assigned to him, to see Thor standing there, his mind having been downloaded into the first Potter-generation body that had ever been created.

He could see that, despite acting like they didn't care about what people thought about their appearance, the Asgard _had_ been affected by it. After all, the current Thor body looked very human, although he retained his grayish skin and wide, black eyes. He looked the very image of what one might call an 'alien Adonis,' which showed how happy they were to not be little gray men anymore.

Harry felt himself actually grow curious to see what the females would look like...

Thor's bulging head didn't have any hair, showing that they had retained some of their previous form, but he _was_ wearing clothes now, considering he actually had genitals to cover up.

"It that going to be the standard-issue uniform for the Asgard now?" Harry asked, gesturing for the neat, sort of plain, dark gray shirt and black pants Thor wore.

"For the males, yes," Thor said, nodding, and Harry had to admit that it felt weird hearing Thor's voice coming from a body like that. "However, we noticed something puzzling during our cloning procedures."

"Oh?" Harry asked, already knowing what Thor was going to say.

"We are unable to make any manipulations to the genes you allowed us to integrate with our own," Thor said, which made Harry smirk.

"Of course. If anyone could tamper with, or replicate, my genes without my permission, then I wouldn't be so special. I have made many modifications to my own body and genes, and I have made sure that only someone with my biological energy signature, which cannot be replicated, can tamper with them. I like your race, but I'd probably only give you full creative freedom with my genes if I liked you to the point of worship, and I'll never like anyone that much."

"I see."

"So, I can tell that you guys actually did take offense whenever anyone commented on your size," Harry said, giving Thor a shrewd look. "How's the body?"

"I possess a physical strength I cannot remember ever having. In fact, all my physical abilities are leagues beyond what I can remember having ever experienced," Thor said, giving Harry a bow of his head. "The Asgard owe you a debt of gratitude we can never repay."

"Yeah, well, that debt is going to be bigger," Harry said, patting the device he had been working on for the last three weeks while overseeing the work on the Asgard genes. "I've finished the disruptor."

"Have you really?" Thor asked, picking up the device, which looked almost like a lantern, with a dull, blue glow inside it. "But you said that only biological energy manipulation was capable of emitting the disruptive frequency?"

"And that's true. Sure, if you had a sophisticated enough piece of machinery, you could hit the same frequency, but none of us have such a machine. As such, I have placed a piece of my flesh, supercharged with the biological energy at the correct frequency, at the very center of the device. In actuality, the device itself is nothing but a container. When activated, it will unleash the disruptive frequency."

"So, it is a weapon that can only be used once?" Thor asked, which made Harry grin.

"With luck, we only need to use it once," he said, taking the device and setting it down on the workbench. "Listen, you said yourself that you discovered the core command in Reese, right?"

"The order to come forth, yes," Thor said, nodding.

"Well, I've been thinking. We have time dilation technology, we have the core command, and we have the disruptor. Why don't we use them?"

"You wish to set a trap for them, Dr. Potter?" Thor asked, his large eyes narrowing in thought. "You wish to use the android Reese's core function to draw in all the Replicators, and use the disruptor. But what good is the time dilation technology?"

"We use the time dilation field around the planet on which we place the disruptor," Harry said. "That way, we can make sure all the Replicators surround the planet before the first ship has even reached it. You never know what a Replicator might learn from Reese."

"That is very true," Thor said. "If the Replicators were to get a hold of the nanite technology in the android..."

"So, we disrupt them before it ever gets to that," Harry said with a grin. "We find an uninhabited planet, set the trap, and then wait."

"I believe, Dr. Potter, that there is such a planet in this galaxy to use for the trap," Thor said, and Harry was very surprised to see an actual smile on the Asgard's face.

–

As Harry stood in Othala, he was very... not quite upset, but still kind of annoyed. After all, he wouldn't be able to see if his disruptor worked. Thor had advised him to stay behind and help with the creation of the new Asgard bodies. However, Frank had been brought along. After all, once the Replicators had been neutralized, Frank needed to be sent in to assimilate the Replicator hive mind.

So now, Harry was in one of the many parks on Othala. While most of the planet was covered in buildings, he had noticed that there were many large, green parks here and there. It seemed as though even the Asgard knew how to just drop work and relax every once in a while.

Harry, however, shuddered at the thought. The only reason he was in the park was because he needed to do something, and had therefore started doing some physical exercise. Although his rapid cell-regeneration and powerful genes would prevent muscle-deterioration, he still felt the need to exercise every once in a while, so he could keep track of how much he needed to hold back.

"Dr. Potter," a soft, female voice said as Harry was in the middle of his push-ups. He looked to the side to see a woman standing a few feet away from him. He had to admit, Asgard women looked a lot better now. Wearing a black skirt that went down to mid-thigh, and a beautifully designed shirt that was open at the shirt to show an impressive cleavage, the female Asgard had darker skin than the males, and a bit shorter, too. Her head was smaller, much more proportionate to her body, and she had 'hair,' as well. Well, it wasn't quite hair. More like a semi-flexible, cartilage-based scalp crests that were slicked back and reached down to mid-neck, the tips curving outward slightly. Her mouth was also smaller than a male Asgard, and her cheekbones were less prominent, and more curved than the pointed cheekbones of the male.

"Sujanha," Harry said as he got to his feet, nodding in greeting. His shirt and coat were off, as he had not yet found a way to conquer sweat, but thankfully, none of the Asgard were uncomfortable with the modifications he had made to his body.

"You recognized me," Sujanha said, the skin where a human would have had eyebrows rising in surprise. Then, she nodded slowly. "Of course, your right eye recognized my signature."

"Correct," Harry said with a nod. "Nice hair."

"It is not hair," Sujanha explained, smiling softly. "These tails store parts of my brain, and serve as sensors."

"Sensors?" Harry asked, walking up to Sujanha and looking over her 'hair.' "Aah, I see... There is a large concentration of my genes in these tails. So, being connected to your brain, you can use them as sort of a sonar device?"

"I hope to find more uses for them, but that is what I had in mind during the design," Sujanha said with a nod. "I know Supreme Commander Thor and Heimdall have already done so, along with the Asgard High Council, but I wish to offer you my thanks for offering your genes to us so freely."

"Well, in all honesty, it wasn't exactly free," Harry confessed. "I did have an ulterior motive."

"Did you?"

"Of course. After all, after offering my genes and a way for you to defeat the Replicators, it's not like you, in good conscience, can deny me when I request to take a look at some of your technology."

"Understandable," Sujanha said, smiling again. "It was a low price to pay."

"Then, you're saying I should ask for more?" Harry asked, giving Sujanha a smirk.

"I am saying that you _could_ have asked for more, not that you should."

Harry and Sujanha had become pretty good friends as well during Harry's time on Othala. Sujanha was pretty famous. Sometime during the sixteenth century, she made a theoretical breakthrough in the field of human psionics. With these theories, Sujanha believed that she could allow the Naranjani natives of the planet Naranjan to reach their full psionic potential without using the complex rituals which had previously been employed by the Nivashan.

Using Asgard technology to disguise herself as a Human, Sujanha went to the planet Naranjan and began teaching students her methods. Her theoretical breakthrough was proved a success and her efforts were ultimately successful, but the full-scale introduction of psionics proved disruptive to society on Naranjan, leading to widespread rebellion against the ruling Nivashan.

Nonetheless, the theories would prove useful in helping the Asgard learn how to use 'magic.'

"It is a shame, however, that these genes weren't encoded with genetic memory as well," Sujanha said conversationally. "It would have been incredible to possess the great control you have over your biological energy."

"Yeah, well, you can't have everything in life," Harry said, grinning at Sujanha.

"_Harry,_" came Thor's voice from the pocket of his coat, which was on the ground not far from Harry, who walked over to it and took out the communication crystal.

"Well, look at that," Harry spoke into it. "You actually used my first name. Miracles do happen."

"_That is what you requested that I call you,_" Thor said, which made Harry chuckle.

"Yeah, I requested it when I first came here. Took you long enough."

"_Yes, well..._" Thor was quiet for a moment, then said, "_We just detected the last known Replicator ship entering the time dilation field. Are you certain that your disruptor has the same range as the time dilation field?_"

"You ask me that _now_?" Harry asked, blinking in surprise. "In any case, both you and I triple-checked the disruptor. It has the right range."

"_Understood. We are activating it now._"

Harry nodded, even though Thor couldn't see it, and waited in silence for a few moments, Sujanha standing next to him, watching in curiosity.

"_The disruptor performed within expected parameters,_" Thor said suddenly. "_The Replicator ships are breaking apart. With luck, we managed to also connect the hive minds to the android, which should permit your AI to take out a single enemy._"

"That'll just make him sad," Harry said with a chuckle. "I'm glad to hear that it worked, though. I knew it would, but it's always nice to get confirmation."

"_We shall return as soon as Frank has destroyed the Replicator minds._"

"Take your time. I've got Sujanha here to keep me company, if I need it," Harry said as he pocketed the crystal, before putting on his shirt and coat again, after waving his hand over himself to get rid of the sweat. Now that he was fully dressed again, he once more turned to Sujanha. "So, when will the new bodies be ready for mass-production?"

"Despite our certainty, we would like to test the bodies on a select few Asgard before we begin mass-producing them," Sujanha said. "It would be easier to remedy should only a small amount of bodies malfunction, rather than an entire population."

Harry nodded slowly. Then, after a moment of silence, Sujanha tilted her head to the side.

"Heimdall told us of the instantaneous movement you used in order to get onto the ship to save Thor. Would you mind explaining it to me?"

"Well, I doubt you have reached the level of skill required to use it yet, but I guess I can show you," Harry said, walking up to Sujanha. He took her hand in his, and then Apparated away.

–

In a flash of light, Harry and Frank appeared in Harry's apartment on earth. In the living room, to be precise. In front of them, on the couch, sat Tonks and Freya, their eyes wide upon seeing him.

"You're back!" Tonks exclaimed loudly, leaping over the coffee table and tackling Harry to the ground. Thankfully, Freya wasn't that impulsive, instead opting to rise from the couch and give a relieved smile.

"Unless I'm an impostor, I suppose I am," Harry said with a grunt, quite enjoying, as always, the feeling of Tonks straddling him. What he didn't enjoy, however, was getting punched in the chest by an annoyed Tonks.

"You can't just leave for a month without a word!" she yelled at him.

"Okay, first, ow," Harry said calmly, sitting up with Tonks still straddling him. "Second, I didn't exactly have time to tell you. I didn't even come home first."

"What if Freya and Anise hadn't been here, though?" Tonks said, throwing her hand out to gesture for Freya. "Not only wouldn't I have known where you were, but I would have been left sexually starved!"

"Well, that's..." Harry trailed off, blinking, then looked from Tonks to a blushing Freya. "What have you two been doing without me?"

"Nothing," Freya said quickly, walking up to them and pulling Tonks off Harry. "I am very pleased to see that you have returned. I was told that you went to the galaxy of the Asgard, but no one told me what you were doing there..."

"What _were_ you doing?" Tonks wanted to know.

"Oh, you know, did a little research, saved an entire race, the usual," Harry said with a shrug, getting up from the floor. "What's been happening here?"

"We've been experimenting," Tonks said, grinning as she slung an arm around Freya's shoulders. "Did you know that if Freya and Anise enter a state where they are both conscious and having a little struggle for control, they both experience pleasure on the same level, thus doubling it?"

"I thought we agreed that we would be subtle when talking about it..." Freya muttered, blushing furiously, before casting a glance at Frank. "And without him nearby."

"_Trust me, fleshy mammary-snake, I have no interest in your sexual habits,_" Frank said simply, walking off toward the bedroom. "_That you would think such a thing shows the clear lack of intelligence your kind possesses. What the master sees in you, I will never know._"

Harry, Tonks, and Freya watched Frank walk into the bedroom. Then Tonks turned to look at Harry and said, "I really don't like that thing. Can't you mute it like you can with the telly?"

"You know, Nym, I would, but... he's just too damn fun," Harry said with a grin.

–

Harry walked through the SGC, having just finished an insanely long briefing with General Hammond regarding what he had been doing for the Asgard, where he was forced to reveal just how much the Asgard had given him in return, all stored in a device he had constructed with Thor, capable of converting Asgard data to human data, since his own was just a prototype. Of course, he didn't reveal everything. Sure, he told the General everything that was on the device, but only what was on that particular device. He didn't tell the man about the various designs and such downloaded into the second device he brought with him.

"Harry!"

"Jonas," Harry said, turning around and looking at the approaching man in surprise. Jonas was now wearing the standard SGC green tee and pants. "Still here?"

"Yeah," Jonas said, nodding. "I mean, I can't go home, so..."

"Very true," Harry said, lighting a cigarette. He had been smoking more since he got back, considering he ran out of cigarettes three days before he came back. "So, what have you been up to, then?"

"Oh, I've been pretty busy," Jonas said. "You know, I've been looking over some of Dr. Jackson's work. It's pretty interesting."

"I suppose it is, for those whose interests lean in that direction," Harry said with a nod of agreement.

"You don't sound very interested," Jonas noted in confusion. "That's strange, because some of Dr. Jackson's notes claimed that you had helped him with some things."

"You'll notice that the only things I helped him with were things that would help me learn to speak better Ancient," Harry remarked, smirking. "I have no interest in the history of the earth. I've already learned all I can from it."

"Yeah, you're the 'looking forward' kind of guy, from what I've gathered," Jonas agreed with a smile. "So, you working on anything?"

"I just got back, so not yet. I have plans, though. Why? Getting a bit antsy, just sitting around in the SGC all day?"

Jonas made to respond, but a yell of "Harry!" interrupted him, making Harry turn around to see Carter approaching.

"Sam, how nice to see you," Harry said with a smile, knowing full well why Carter was looking so expectant.

"I need to talk to you," Carter said.

"About my ability to Apparate, no doubt?" Harry guessed, to which Carter nodded. "Thanks, by the way, for not telling Hammond about it. The debriefing was long enough without having to explain that as well."

"So, how did you do it?" Carter asked, and even without Legilimency, Harry knew that she was thinking of ways the ability could be used against the Goa'uld.

"You want the truth?" Harry asked, getting a nod. He leaned closer and gestured for Carter to do the same, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. Carter leaned in as well, and Harry smirked at her. "Magic."

With that, he put the cigarette in his mouth again, and walked away, leaving a gaping Carter.

"Jonas, want to see something cool?" he asked as he walked.

"Oh, sure," Jonas said in response, jogging to catch up with him.

When they got to Harry's lab, the mad scientist noticed that Aceso was deactivated. Without a doubt, she had done so as soon as she found out that Harry had left, and had been waiting for him to come back so he could reactivate her. He wouldn't do so right at this moment, however. After all, no need to scar Jonas mind with a perverted AI.

"Still looks as cozy as ever," Jonas said sarcastically as he looked around the dimly lit lab. Harry just chuckled, however, and walked over to his computer, grabbing a large, folded up piece of paper and handing it to Jonas. "What's this?"

"Something you helped make possible," Harry explained as Jonas unfolded the paper and looked over the designs for the hyperspace window generator that Harry had been working on before he was taken to Othala.

"There's no writing on these plans..." Jonas said, blinking in confusion.

"Well, of course. Why would I need to explain my plans in writing to myself?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. Jonas blinked again and looked at the mad scientist in surprise. Then, he slowly nodded.

"That's true enough, I suppose..." he muttered, before looking down at the plans again. "Looks to me like some kind of generator."

"It is," Harry said with a nod. "It's actually a hyperspace window generator, with a naquadria core, encased in keron blocks."

"And given the energy-absorbing properties of the keron blocks, they act kind of like a buffer, channeling the energy into the systems, while also preventing the core from getting unstable by always keeping the energy output at a set level?"

"You are understanding me much better than O'Neill and Hammond," Harry said with a grin. "When I told them, they looked at me like I was speaking a different language."

Jonas smiled as he folded the plans again and set them down on the workbench.

"By the way, I realized I never actually apologized to you," Jonas said slowly. "For what happened to Dr. Jackson, I mean."

"Why would you?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's not like you pushed him into the chamber and forced him to touch a highly radioactive reactor."

"Yeah, well, I heard you were friends, and it was partially my fault that it happened, and I avoided telling my superiors what happened..."

"But you eventually did, right?" Harry asked, getting a nod from Jonas. "Then there's no problem. You did all you could do."

"But-"

"Jonas," Harry interrupted, turning to look at Jonas while reaching up and turning his bolt. "You know what I've learned during my almost twenty-two years of life?"

"What?"

"Too much for your brain to handle, actually, but one of the things I've learned is this: Don't dwell on shite you can't change. It'll just make you depressed, and probably a little crazy. Don't get stuck in the past like some scared little boy who's too afraid to move forward. Look ahead and keep moving."

Jonas blinked, obviously not having expected Harry to say something like that. Then, slowly, he nodded.

–

_Journal, July 5th, 2002,_

_It has once more been a while since I put something down in this journal, other than little thoughts and notes. In all honesty, I think a small part of me has been a bit depressed about Daniel's 'passing.' I won't claim him to be dead, since he is decidedly not, but fact remains that he is not here. I cannot discuss things with him anymore, something that has left me a bit saddened. I thought myself above such emotions, but I suppose I was wrong. I valued his friendship, even if I never showed it..._

_But Oma was capable of appearing on this plane, which leads me to believe that Daniel will one day be capable of doing the same. I remain hopeful that I will see him again._

_It's a bit late, but I decided to write down my discoveries regarding Anubis. He is not corporeal. His essence is constantly struggling to get out of the forcefield which holds him. Also, his soul wavelength is very similar to the wavelength Daniel's soul adopted when he Ascended._

_Could Anubis be partially Ascended? I didn't quite register this during my encounter with him. If I had, I would have brought him back to the SGC for study. It is, truly, a great pity that I was unable to notice that... And the worst part is that if he uses any abilities that an Ascended being might have, I am unable to protect myself by mimicking his wavelength. After all, if I did, I would surely force an Ascension, and I have no wish to do so yet, if ever._

_The Prometheus is almost completed. It would have been completed much sooner, had I gone with the original designs, but the original was a bit too small for me, especially if you consider the size of the O'Neill-class Asgard vessels. I have no wish to be outdone by formerly little gray men. Besides, Thor's teasing about how he didn't believe me capable of doing so, would have forced me to make it larger, had I not already done so._

_Carter is still pestering me to reveal how I was capable of Apparating. I did tell the truth, I just never told her how, exactly, I used magic to do it._

_The X-302 is almost finished. I merely have some minor adjustments to make to it, and then it will be ready for a test flight. I am hoping that O'Neill will volunteer to try it. After all, stupid as he may be, he is a very accomplished pilot._

–

Harry was sitting on the nose of the X-302, smoking a cigarette in peace. The 302 was in a hangar in Area 51. Luckily, McKay was still in Russia, so he didn't have to worry about that annoying little shit, so all was good.

Mechanics were scurrying around, double- and triple-checking to make sure nothing was wrong with it. Didn't see why they had to, though. After all, it wasn't like anything Harry built was going to malfunction, especially when he oversaw the construction himself.

The hangar door was opened, and SG-1 arrived, along with Jonas. Harry grinned widely at the looks on their faces. Well, except for Carter, though, as she had been kept up to speed and shown pictures of the construction the whole time.

"Gentlemen, lady," Harry said, making a sweeping gesture with his arm for the X-302 he was standing on. "It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the first of the X-302 line of human-made space fighters, the Nym!"

"Wow," Jonas uttered in amazement, while O'Neill raised an eyebrow.

"The Nym?"

"For brownie points," Harry explained, plopping down on the nose again, grinning. "What do you think?"

O'Neill climbed the ladder to the cockpit and pushed a button next to it, causing the cockpit to slide open, almost pushing Harry off the nose.

"No," he said suddenly, looking into the cockpit.

"Hm?" Harry uttered, looking back at the Colonel with his eyebrows raised.

"I said no, you're not getting me to fly this thing," O'Neill said, shaking his head. "Don't you remember the 301? We almost went up in a ship that would have flung us into space to die."

"Yeah, well, the X-301 was a modified glider," Harry said simply, patting the hull of the Nym. "This baby is completely man-made. I designed it, and I wouldn't send you up into space to die."

"If it was interesting enough, you would," O'Neill countered. Harry opened his mouth to retort, but not finding a way to deny the accusation, he simply settled for nodding.

"Alright, so maybe that's true, but I haven't done that with this girl. Why would I make sure the first ship I've ever designed from scratch would malfunction, especially after I've named it after my girlfriend?"

"I'm still a bit iffy..." O'Neill muttered, slipping into the cockpit to look over the controls. "Are you sure? Absolutely, one hundred and fifteen percent sure that nothing will go wrong?"

"One hundred and fifty," Harry said with a smirk.

"I confess, O'Neill, I am very interested in seeing how this vessel flies," Teal'c said as he came out from under the ship, a rare smile on his face.

Jonas, who had been standing on the ladder looking into the cockpit as well, smiled brightly.

"Very impressive," he told Harry, who gave him a thumbs up, before patting the ship again.

"This is a very special ship, you know. It has four different sets of engines, air-breathing jets, modified aerospikes for high altitude, a rocket booster, and a hyperspace window generator."

This statement served its purpose of greatly surprising Teal'c, who looked up at Harry with eyes that were somewhat wider than usual.

"Even Goa'uld gliders are not capable of entering hyperspace."

"Because the Goa'uld hyperspace generators are too big for them. My generator, which has a naquadria core encased in keron blocks, is a lot more compact, and fits into the X-302," Harry explained, grinning.

"Jonas, this was all made possible thanks to you," Carter told the alien, whose eyes widened, while Harry grumbled.

"Not bloody likely... But the construction was finished a lot faster, I'll give you that," he muttered, hopping off the Nym down to the floor. He walked up to Carter and grinned again, making a gesture for the X-302. "So, what do you think of the finished product?"

"It's amazing," Carter admitted, smiling. "I didn't expect it to be finished so soon, though."

"Yeah, well, since SG-1 has been busy putting all those people through trial weeks, I've had a lot more time to focus on my work," Harry said, before looking at Carter with a smirk. "How many have you gone through now? Eight?"

"Nine, if you count the two hours Captain Mathison lasted."

"Wow... I hear you're even off the mission list now, too."

"Yeah, the Colonel has a partially torn ligament in his knee. We have to wait until it heals."

"I see," Harry said, nodding slowly. Then, he jutted his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the Nym. "So, since the Colonel is being a little girl, how about you show who's got the biggest cajones in the team and take her for a spin with me?"

"What?" Carter asked, her eyes widening. "Oh, you know, I'd love to, but... Do you have any experience flying one of these?"

"Sam, I've built her. You think I don't know how to fly her? Now, come on!"

Harry jogged over to the ladder, climbing up to the cockpit, where O'Neill was still sitting. He reached in and grabbed O'Neill by the back of his collar and lifted him out, getting a "Hey!" of protest from the Colonel.

"Sorry, mate, we're taking her for a spin," Harry said, hopping into the pilot seat, grinning widely. When he noticed that no one was getting into the cockpit with him, he looked out at the rest of SG-1. "What, no one's coming? Tch, fine! You can fly with only one person, anyway..."

He pushed a button in front of him, and the cockpit slid shut. Then, he fished a small remote out of his pocket and pushed the button on it, watching as the hangar doors opened. Then, he started up the systems in the X-302, a wide grin on his face. He wasn't much for flying crafts this small, but hey, it was better than nothing, considering the 303 wasn't ready yet.

Once the ladder was moved away from the fighter, Harry activated the controls, and the Nym slowly rose into the air, then flew out of the hangar. Once it had exited the hangar, however, Harry raised the nose, and put the proverbial petal to the metal, shooting up into the air at insane speeds, accompanied by his mad cackling.

–

"_Master,_" Frank spoke later that night as Harry said in his lab, working on designs, "_it is most unusual for you to abandon a project halfway through. Especially when said project involves increasing my firepower. Why have you ceased modifying that sniper rifle?_"

"Because I got an idea for another upgrade for you," Harry said with a grin. "I am designing a flight attachment for you. Of course, I don't want to make you too bulky, so in order to fit the control device for it, I will have to remove either the cloaking device or the phase-shifting device, but I think it may be useful."

"_Are you saying that I will be able to pick off meatbags from high altitudes, and cross great distances at high speeds, master?_" Frank asked, to which Harry nodded. "_Oh, master, you fill this unit with such untold amounts of joy._"

The very next day, something happened that pulled Harry out of his lab and prevented him from being able to keep working on his flight attachment. His phone rang as he worked on the designs, and when he picked it up, it was Carter, who urged him to come to the control room.

When he got there, he saw that the Gate was activated, and the iris was closed.

"What's the problem?"

"It seems to be... nothing," Carter said, staring at the computer in front of her. "Gate's functioning properly, but... nothing's incoming."

"Well, I'm not one to use this term often, but that's impossible," Harry said, shaking his head. "In order to keep the wormhole active, you have to send _something_ through."

"Yeah, well, we're getting nothing, not even radio signals."

"Bollocks," Harry said, putting his foot on Carter's chair, which had wheels like Harry's own, and pushed her away, before walking up to the computer, tapping away. "By the way, where's Teal'c? Haven't seen him around for a few hours."

"He's on Chulak," Carter explained, looking disgruntled about having been pushed away. "Drey'auc is sick, and he's going to try to get her to accept the Prometheus Serum."

"I see," Harry said, turning his head to look at the timer showing how long the Gate had been active. "Forty-eight minutes? That's ten minutes above the known limit..."

He shook his head and looked back at the computer, bringing up the Gate diagnostics. There were no incoming energy readings, which surprised him, considering such a thing was impossible. He increased the sensitivity of the sensor by two hundred percent, and smirked when he saw a pattern of blips appear on the computer graph on the screen.

"Like I said, impossible," Harry said to Carter, gesturing for the computer. "It's small, but something is being sent through at regular intervals. It's got a distinct pattern, so it can't be an error."

"That... could be a problem..." Carter muttered.

"Yeah, if the gate absorbs more of this energy than it can handle... boom," Harry said, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "No idea what could be doing such a thing, though."

"Can't we contact the Asgard and ask for help?"

"Yeah, we could," Harry said with a nod. "After all, they're free to do whatever now that the Replicators are gone, but... do we want to?"

"What do you mean?" Carter asked, blinking in confusion. "We're part of the protected planets, so..."

"Well, yeah, but we don't exactly show the Asgard that we're growing if we go running to them whenever we have a problem," Harry reasoned, rubbing his chin. "You know what, I think I can figure out where this wormhole is coming from, and then I can figure something out. There's no need to bother Thor with something so trivial."

Carter's eyes widened in surprise.

"How are you going to figure that out?"

"Well, just because the event horizon permits only one-way trips, that doesn't mean the wormhole itself only goes one way," Harry said, smirking. "Give me an hour, I'll figure something out."

–

**End of chapter seventeen! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry figures out the location of the dialing gate and goes to the planet to wreak havoc! He also insults a Russian Colonel, because, you know, he's Harry. Stay tuned!**


	18. Chapter 18

**ZnK here with chapter eighteen! Sorry I took so long, and for kind of rushing through this. It was too important an episode to skip, yet I didn't really have many ideas for it to draw it out. Anyway, in this chapter, Harry goes to destroy Anubis' weapon with Frank, and later goes on vacation to Othala to make some upgrades!**

–

"I do not understand, General Hammond," the Russian Colonel Chekov said, standing in Hammond's office with Harry. "If we are part of this protected planets treaty, why do we not contact the Asgard for help?"

"Because Dr. Potter feels, and I agree, that we can never get them to trust our strength as a race if we go running to them whenever we have a problem," Hammond said simply. "Now, we will only use contacting the Asgard as a last resort. In the meantime, Dr. Potter has designed a program that will track the location of the Stargate that is keeping ours open. Hopefully, he will be able to figure out a way to shut it down."

"Speaking of him," Chekov said, pointing at Harry. "Why have Russia not been given the plans for these sentry units that patrol these halls?"

"Because they are not American property," Hammond said simply.

"They were manufactured in your factories, with your supplies!"

"The only reason they manufactured them was because they were given a lowered price for renting them from me," Harry said simply, smirking. "The designs belong to me, and not the United States."

Chekov turned to look at Harry.

"Then why has Great Britain not included themselves in our negotiations?"

"Because, Colonel, Britain aren't the ones who the plans belong to," Hammond said, also smirking. "Dr. Potter has been making many technological advancements that he is allowing earth to use in order to defend the planet. However, he is well-aware of how jealous certain countries can become if another has better technology. Therefore, he has decided he is no longer a citizen of earth."

"What?" Chekov asked, giving Harry a shocked look.

"That's right," Harry said, grinning. "I am officially a citizen of Othala, with blessings from the Asgard. I just live here, also in exchange for lowered rent."

"Then why have you not offered Russia the same deals?"

"Because I really didn't want to?" Harry suggested, shrugging.

"Do you have a problem with Russia, Doctor?" Chekov asked with a glare, which made Harry snort.

"Oh, don't worry, Colonel. I don't have a problem with Russians specifically. I hate _all_ idiots, regardless where they're from."

Chekov's brow furrowed, proving Harry's point by the fact that he didn't even realize that Harry had just called him an idiot.

"Regardless, who I allow to use my designs is entirely up to me," Harry said, crossing his arms. "Of course, if you have a problem with that, you can just take it up with my government."

"And what government is that?" Chekov asked, which made Harry smirk.

"Well, although I'm not officially under their jurisdiction, the fact that I am officially a citizen on their planet, the organization I answer to is the Asgard. Of course, the Prime Minister has significant influence over me as well, being the leader of my country of birth and all. But I had a long talk with him, and he has decided that it's best if this technology isn't officially earth's technology, as you'd just squabble amongst yourself like children who are jealous because other children have bigger toys than you."

Chekov bristled at that, but then he paused, blinked once, and then gave Harry a fierce glare.

"How dare you call me an idiot, Doctor?!"

Harry clicked his tongue.

"Just proved my point, didn't you?" he asked, before scoffing and heading for the door. "I don't have time for this. Once I've located the dialing Gate, Frank and I will take the 302 there."

"Good luck, Doctor," Hammond said, smirking at Chekov.

Harry made his way to the Gate room, where his equipment had been hooked up to the Gate. He walked over to the computer that had been set up and hooked his control device to it, then launched the program in the device.

His program worked by sending an immensely powerful radio signal through the wormhole. The signal would be picked up by an Asgard ship, who would send the information to the crystal installed in his control device. So, he waited...

"Hey, Frank," he spoke into the control device.

"_Master?_"

"I'm going to need you to go with me to another planet. I know it's only got one type of ammunition, but grab the sniper and cloak yourself, then come to the Gate Room."

"_Understood, master. How many batteries will be required?_"

"Only one, I think. I doubt you'll be firing too much."

"_A shame, master, but some is better than none, I suppose._"

Since the Asgard were people who, in Harry's opinion, you could always count on, it came as no surprise to the mad scientist when he received not only a set of coordinates, but also all data the Asgard had gathered on the planet, like how the surface looked, how the air was, what other planets were in the system, everything.

Nodding to himself, Harry closed the control device and walked off, ordering the workers to disconnect everything.

Then, he reached out, grabbed the cloaked Frank, and Apparated straight to Area 51.

"Dr. Potter!" Dr. Murphy, the man in charge of the X-302 project whenever Harry wasn't there, said in surprise when Harry came walking into the hangar holding the X-302. "I didn't expect to see you back so soon."

"Yeah, well, I'm taking Nym for a trip," Harry said, jutting his thumb over his shoulder to point at the de-cloaking Frank. "He's coming with me. We're just gonna go save the planet. We'll be back soon, though."

With that, Harry and Frank walked past the blinking Dr. Murphy and climbed into the Nym.

"U-Um, Doctor?" Dr. Murphy said, blinking in confusion. "If you plan on exiting the atmosphere, shouldn't you bring some equipment?"

"I have all the equipment I need," Harry said, reaching into his coat and taking out a small, slimmed plate, putting in on his face so it covered from the bridge of his nose and down to his chin. He pressed a button on it, and plating slid out to cover his face. "This mask will serve the purpose of providing me with oxygen."

"But it's not connected to anything..."

"This is above your level of intelligence, Dr. Murphy," Harry said as he strapped in, Frank doing the same behind him. "Just stick to putting together fighters, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, Harry closed the cockpit and took out the remote for the hangar doors, opening them. Then, he started up the Nym and blasted off.

"Alright, Frank, are you ready to test the hyperspace window generator?"

"_Even if I say no, we are still doing this, are we not, master?_" Frank asked as they shot straight up into the air.

"Yup."

"_Then it matters not if I am ready, so what is the point of asking the question?_"

Harry sighed. "Frank, although you are great to have around sometimes, right now your logic is... just killing me..."

"_Incorrect, master. I may be depressing you, but words are not capable of killing organic flesh sacks like yourself. If they could, I would most certainly be speaking every second of every day._"

"What a surprise..." Harry muttered. "Punch in the coordinates, will you?"

"_Yes, master,_" Frank said, doing as he was told as Harry activated the rocket engine, kicking the speed of the Nym up to forty thousand kilometers per hour, taking them out of the atmosphere. "_Master, I am surprised. I never took you for the type to enjoy flying._"

"I don't, but we have to get there somehow, and I don't want to hitch a ride with Thor for something so trivial as saving earth."

"_Most meatbags would not call a situation like this trivial, master._"

"Oh, come on, it's earth, one planet among an infinite amount of planets. The only thing that would be unfortunate about it blowing up would be that my few loved ones are there."

"_But you would still have me, master,_" Frank said mirthfully.

"Yes, there's always that," Harry said, nodding slowly. "Somehow, that's... actually comforting..."

"_Likewise, master, the thought of having you with me is very comforting as well._"

"I'm glad we have these heart-to-heart talks occasionally."

"_Do you not mean Life-covered heart-to-keron power supply, master?_"

Harry sighed. "Just activate the hyperspace window..."

"_As you wish, master. Engaging the hyperspace window now._"

A colorful vortex appeared in front of the 302, and their speed increased significantly as they shot into it in a flash of bright light.

"Alright, we have about three hours until we reach the planet," Harry said, trying to stretch in the cramped quarters. "What do you want to do to pass the time?"

"_Master, we still have a chess game that we need to complete,_" Frank reminded Harry, who nodded.

"Oh, yes, that we do," he realized as he opened his control device. "Your turn, I believe."

"_That it is, master._"

–

Teal'c, Bra'tac, and Teal'c's son, Rya'c, were stealthily running through the underbrush of the planet from which Anubis was attacking earth's Stargate. When they reached a vantage point, a glider flew overhead, and below them, they could see Anubis's weapon house in a large, open area, encircled by huge edifices which were linked by beams. In the center, the large weapon was shooting a beam of energy into the opened Stargate.

"This weapon is unlike any Goa'uld design I have seen," Bra'tac said in amazement.

"I have seen a similar construction before," Teal'c informed them. "It appears to have been built by the Ancients."

"Who are they?" Rya'c asked.

"An advanced race of beings who, long ago, created the Stargates."

"But I thought the-"

"The Goa'uld steal the technology and claim it as their own," Teal'c interrupted.

"If this is not Goa'uld technology, then Anubis has merely learned to operate it. Then..." Bra'tac trailed off, and Teal'c's eyes widened in realization.

"Perhaps by destroying it, he will not be able to rebuild it quickly."

"If at all."

All three heads snapped to the right, and Teal'c was immensely surprised to see none other than Harry Potter fading into view next to them, along with his AI, Frank.

"Who are you?" Rya'c asked in surprise.

"Harry Potter, nice to meet you. You must be Rya'c," Harry said, nodding in greeting.

"Potter...? The creator of the Prometheus Serum?" Rya'c asked, his eyes widening.

"The very same," Harry said with another nod. "So, it looks like you discovered this planet as well."

"How were you able to locate it, Harry Potter?" Teal'c asked curiously.

"Oh, you know, I just whipped up a program that would send a radio signal through the Gate, to the Asgard, who picked it up and transmitted its location to me. I took the X-302 and came as soon as I could."

"Could you not ask the Asgard for assistance?" Bra'tac asked, which made Harry click his tongue in disdain.

"Why does everyone say that? You can't grow as a person or a race if you go running to your allies for help with every little thing," he muttered, turning back to look at the device. "Anyway, I don't think this is enough of a challenge to bother the Asgard with."

"If you brought the X-302, and it is ready, why did you not use it to destroy the device?" Teal'c asked.

"Well... Okay, first of all, just because it's capable of flight, that doesn't mean I've had the time to install any weapons on it. Second of all, even if I did have weapons on the Nym, how do you suppose I'd be able to study the damn thing if I blew it to bits?"

"Even at great distances, you can deduce the functions of devices merely by observing them, Harry Potter. What can you tell us about this device?" Teal'c asked.

"Well, it's shielded, that's for sure," Harry said, gesturing for the edifices surrounding the weapon. "See those pillars? They're shield generators, surrounds the whole area, except for a small path that has an opening in the shield. It's heavily guarded, though. As for the device itself, from what I can tell, it's got a very powerful generator in it. It unleashes a massive amount of energy to manipulate the wormhole in order to keep it open past the thirty-eight minute window, while at the same time channeling energy through the wormhole into the earth Gate. Pretty sophisticated, but not their best work."

Harry made a gesture with his hand, and Frank, lying next to him, took a very large sniper rifle off his back. Teal'c had seen that type of rifle before. He believed it was called a Barrett sniper rifle. However, Harry had very clearly done his own work on the rifle, turning it into something that looked like a mix between the sniper rifle and a Ma'Tok staff weapon.

"What is that?" Rya'c asked, nodding toward the rifle.

"Well, the Asgard has much better tools than earth, so it gave me a bigger playground. This allowed me to create a couple of different battery packs for Frank's sniper rifle, and a converter for the rifle that would allow it to fire the different types of shots," Harry explained, making a gesture for the battery that had replaced the magazine. "This employs the same energy source as a staff weapon. However, the shots are smaller, but has a higher velocity and, due to their compact size, are many times more deadly than a normal staff blast. Alright, Frank, take out the stragglers."

"_Understood, master,_" Frank said, taking aim with the rifle.

"Does the rifle not require a scope, Harry Potter?" Teal'c asked curiously, which made Harry chuckle.

"Teal'c, Frank _is_ a scope," Harry explained as Frank squeezed off a shot. A light, sizzling sound was heard as the shot was fired, and half a second later, a lone Jaffa some thousand yards away dropped like a puppet with its head blown off. "As you can see, the muzzle velocity is amazing. Frank, stats?"

"_Master, my visuals indicate that the muzzle velocity reached two thousand one hundred and eight yards per second, fifty percent faster than the expected speed._"

"Excellent," Harry said, nodding in approval. "Alright, I count six more loners. Take them out."

"_Already targeting, master,_" Frank said, before squeezing off another shot, then another, and another, firing six shots in quick succession and taking out the Jaffa patrolling around the shield. "_Meatbags eliminated with extreme prejudice, master._"

"I guess we only have the ones at the opening to take care of now," Harry said, lighting a cigarette.

"_Do you wish for me to take them out as well, master?_" Frank asked, which made Harry scoff.

"Where's the fun in that, Frank?" he asked, a smirk appearing on his face. "No, I think we need to get up close and personal for this one. Teal'c, I'm not wounding your pride or anything if I ask you to be backup, right?"

"Would it not be better if Teal'c and I went in first, Harry Potter?" Bra'tac asked. "You do not look like much of a fighter."

"Looks can be deceiving, Master Bra'tac," Harry said with a smirk, rising to his feet. "Get to a better vantage point. If things go sour, but I doubt that they will, be ready to come in guns... er... staffs blazing."

"It feels wrong," Bra'tac said as the three Jaffa got to their feet, watching as Harry and Frank walked off. "To let someone so young go fight while we stay hidden."

"You say that only because you have never seen Harry Potter fight, Master Bra'tac," Teal'c said. "I once saw him and his AI Frank battle hundreds of Jaffa and win. Granted, Harry Potter did not engage in much fighting on the ground. However, he headed up into orbit and single-handedly destroyed four Ha'taks on his own, and captured the fifth."

Bra'tac and Rya'c went wide-eyed at hearing that. Clearly, they hadn't expected to hear that someone like Harry had accomplished something like that.

The three Jaffa moved from their spot, looking for a better vantage point. The found a hill that provided a clear view of the opening in the shield, which was guarded by several Jaffa. The guard looked light, though, and Teal'c could help but suspect that it was a trap.

Harry and Frank came walking into view down the path. As soon as the Jaffa called for them to stop, the duo charged forward at an amazing speed. Two blades popped out of Frank's arms, and he sliced through any Jaffa in his way, while Harry moved a lot more cautiously. Although, to a normal man it would look as though Harry charged in just as recklessly as Frank, but Teal'c, an experienced warrior, could easily see that Harry's muscles were tense and prepared to dodge in a second, as demonstrated when one of the Jaffa fired on him, and he just spun out of the blast's path without even slowing down.

"Who is this man?" Rya'c asked in amazement. "He moves with a speed I've never seen before..."

"Harry Potter is a man who is aware of the weaknesses of his body," Teal'c explained. "For years he has endeavored to improve his physical abilities. He possesses speed and strength well above anyone I've ever seen."

A staff blast suddenly came from out of the bushes and smashed into the right side of Harry's head, making Teal'c's eyes widen as Harry dropped to the ground. More Jaffa came out of the bushes, their staffs raised. Teal'c took this as his signal, as he nodded to Bra'tac, and then ran down the hill they were on, already firing at the Jaffa.

Frank, meanwhile, had rushed right over to his downed master and taken the rifle off his back, firing wildly at any Jaffa who dared approach them.

Within moments, Teal'c, Bra'tac, and Frank had taken out the Jaffa who ambushed them, and Teal'c jogged over to Harry, who was still on the ground.

"He-" Teal'c started, but stopped in surprise when Harry shot to his feet, his eyes wide. His glasses were hanging from his left ear, as the right temple of the glasses had been blown off, the end of the bolt sticking out of the right side of his head had crumbled, and most of the right side of his head was badly burnt. However... it was healing fast.

"Wow, that hurt," Harry said, blinking in surprise. He removed his glasses and pocketed them, then blinked in surprise and reached up, touching the damaged bolt. "Huh..."

Harry turned the bolt backwards once, and then pulled the entire thing out of his head, staring at the crumbled end. Teal'c found himself staring in surprise into a hole that went straight through Harry's head.

"Well, this is ruined..." Harry muttered as he removed the large screw-head from the bolt and pocketed both pieces.

"Are you alright, Harry Potter?" Teal'c asked, and Harry nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I have a week to create a new one before I'll be less than alright."

"Then we should hurry."

"Yeah, we should," Harry said with a nod, heading through the opening in the shield and walking toward the device. "I would've liked some time to study this thing, but with my bolt damaged, I guess I'll have to focus on that instead..."

As he walked, Harry started assembling another brick of keron blocks, before attaching a block with a minor AI to it, taken from his control device.

"What is that?" Bra'tac asked curiously.

"A bomb," Harry said simply, throwing the keron bomb at the device, to which it attached like a magnet when it it. "You might want to put some distance between the bomb and you."

–

Harry couldn't help but feel a bit unappreciated. He had pretty much saved earth, yet all he got was a few words of thanks from General Hammond, and then everything went back to normal...

Therefore, Harry had decided to take a little vacation, while he worked on his new bolt. And what better place to do so than on Othala?

"Harry," Thor said as he walked up to Harry's workstation in his private lab on Othala. Being an official citizen of the Asgard, and being their savior, the Asgard were more than happy to provide him with a lab of his own. "How is your progress on the new bolt going?"

"It's going well, thanks," Harry said with a smile. He held up the groundwork for his new bolt. It consisted of two half inch-thick, rectangular plates with rounded edges. The plates (which could be opened to show the wiring inside) were connected by the bolt, which was held in place by screw-like heads attached to the plates, which were sticking out another half inch. "It's actually complete as it is, but I figured that, since I'm throwing out the intimidation factor, I may as well add some new features to it."

"Such as?" Thor asked, taking the new bolt and looking it over.

"Well, with Asgard-style technology, I will be able to store many more features than I would if I was in a lab on earth, so I'll be doing a lot to it," Harry said, smiling. "For example, I'm adding a timer, so it winds itself automatically every hour. I'm also adding a connection to my control device, along with a direct communicator with Frank. When I'm finished with that, I might make some upgrades to my right eye and connect it to the bolt, giving me kind of a photographic memory, and making it a kind of camera as well."

"That is very impressive," Thor said, nodding in approval as he gave the bolt back to Harry. "In other news, I think you will be happy to know that the Asgard have begun construction of the ship you designed during your last visit. As you ordered, all ship functions will be linked to the inhabiting AI, so you will not require a crew, despite the large size of it."

"Thanks, Thor," Harry said with a grin.

"As I told you, Harry, the Asgard owe you a debt that can never be repaid. We are doing everything we can to help you, but we feel that is not enough to express our gratitude."

"Listen, Thor, I don't need monuments or grand gifts. All I want is knowledge, and, of course, help in with the construction of various designs," Harry said, patting Thor on the shoulder. "So stop fretting. I'm happy as it is. You helped me greatly by taking me in as a citizen to allow me to avoid the quarrels of earth."

"We are glad to have you, Harry. Besides, it would have been rude of the Asgard to turn away their savior. We were worried about how our allies on earth would react to your decision, but given the blessings of your country's leader, we saw no problem with it," Thor said, nodding slowly.

"I think it will be better once earth is introduced to space-travel," Harry said as he went back to working on his bolt. "Or, well, I hope it will. Once the people of earth discover that they're not alone in the universe, that there's so much to be explored out here... I hope they will realize that it's petty that it's petty to squabble over such a small piece of earth."

"I hope so as well."

"By the way, where's Frank?"

"He is still in the factory. I believe he was overjoyed at the prospect of overseeing the creation of the new Asgard firearms."

"It's going to feel weird for you. Up until now, you haven't exactly had limbs suited for use of firearms, and now you suddenly do," Harry said with a smirk. "Might take some getting used to."

"With luck, we will have no need to use these firearms, but it is safest to have them, should we end up in a situation where we cannot take advantage of the weaponry on our ships," Thor said slowly, turning his head to look out the large window behind Harry's workstation, looking over the large, green park outside. "I trust your mates are enjoying their stay as much as you are?"

"From what I can tell, yes," Harry said, opening the plates and installing small, white crystals inside them. "Nym isn't exactly used to seeing this much advanced technology, so she can barely keep her jaw from dropping whenever she takes a look around, and Anise, I think, probably creamed her knickers at seeing an Asgard world."

"Creamed her...?" Thor repeated, blinking in confusion as he turned to look at Harry again.

"It's a way to say she had an orgasm when she saw it," Harry explained with a snicker. "You need to learn how to speak properly if you want to be able to socialize with humans."

"I do not understand why an advanced race should strive to lower themselves to speak like less advanced races. Should it not be the other way around?"

"That's very true," Harry admitted with a nod.

"Harry, how long do you have before the bolt needs to be installed?"

"Well, considering I made this," Harry said, taking another bolt out of his pocket, which looked much like the original, only with a much smaller screw-head, and holding it up, "I have an indefinite amount of time before I need to install the new one. This bolt serves as a viable replacement until the improved version is complete."

"Then, with your permission, I would like to add some features to your bolt," Thor said, picking up the bolt again. "I believe I will be able to fit a considerable amount of Asgard knowledge into this device. Given your ability to translate signals in the brain to data and vice versa, then you should theoretically be able to draw out the knowledge via your control device."

"I've already memorized the data you gave me the last time I was here," Harry said, scratching his head. "But I'm sure you have a lot more to share."

"Then you give your permission?"

"Well, I'd like to install it myself, but if you can bring me some crystals, then that's appreciated."

"It will be done," Thor said, giving a bow of his head, before walking off.

–

In a flash of light, Harry, Frank, and Aceso appeared in Harry's lab in the SGC. Nym and Anise had already been beamed into Harry's apartment, as Anise still had her 'vacation.' Yawning, Harry made his way out of his lab. He reached up to turn his bolt, only to remember that it wasn't there anymore. His new bolt had been installed, so he had two one and a half-inch wide plates on either side of his head, the screw-heads positioned above his ears, with a panel of buttons and a row of five lights, only four of which were lit, behind the right screw, while the left plate was bare.

The fifth light on the plate lit up, and the screw started turning on its own, turning five times before stopping, at which point all the lights went out.

"Hey!" came O'Neill's voice from behind Harry as he headed for the elevator. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the Colonel jogging to catch up with him. "Back from your vacation, huh?"

"Yup. Anything happen while I was gone?" Harry asked conversationally as he reached the elevator, pushing the button to call it.

"Oh, you know, the usual," O'Neill said casually, shrugging. "Found this frozen Ancient in Antarctica, released a deadly disease, I couldn't get healed, so the Tok'ra put a snake in me, which took over my body and went to one of Baal's bases to rescue a slave, at which point I got captured, the snake left, and I was tortured to death and put into the sarcophagus many, many... many times."

"Wait, what?!" Harry asked, his eyes wide as he spun around to look at O'Neill in shock. "You met an Ancient?!"

O'Neill frowned at Harry. "Oh, I'm fine now, thanks for asking."

"Yeah, yeah," Harry said, waving him off. "Where is this Ancient?"

"She died. She was the one who carried the disease. She killed herself healing everyone else," O'Neill said. "Unfortunately, she couldn't get to me in time, and since we didn't have time to contact the Asgard..." He trailed off, then shook his head. "Could've used you here."

"Well," Harry started slowly, stepping into the elevator as the doors opened, "you're here, you're all fine. Obviously you didn't need me as much as you think."

"It would have ended all this crap much faster if you were here," O'Neill said as he stepped into the elevator with him.

"Yeah, well, you can't have everything in life," Harry said with a shrug, pushing the button for sub-level twenty-five.

"That's true. So, where are you headed now?"

"I'm sure General Hammond will eventually waste much of my time complaining if I don't let him know that I'm back right away," Harry said. "You?"

"Oh, you know, I'm just... drifting back and forth at the moment."

"Sounds thrilling."

"Oh, very."

"Anything else happen?"

"What's with the curiosity?" O'Neill asked in surprise.

"Oh, just making entries in my journal."

O'Neill just stared at Harry. He didn't need to speak in order to point out that Harry wasn't holding a pen or journal in his hands. Harry just smirked and tapped his new bolt.

"I made some upgrades to this."

"Wow, I can't believe I didn't notice that..." O'Neill muttered, blinking in amazement. "It looks better. More inconspicuous. So, what, you make journal entries in your head? You can do that?"

"You know perfectly well that I am fully capable of creating devices that can interpret brain signals. Don't make yourself sound stupider than you look. That wouldn't be good in your case," Harry said, giving O'Neill a once-over.

O'Neill blinked at that and looked down at himself. "What's wrong with how I look?"

"Well, your facial expression is pretty much set in a way that screams that you really don't understand much, and that you don't even care."

"Always nice to have these little talks with you, Harry," O'Neill said sarcastically as the elevator doors opened on sub-level twenty-five, and Harry stepped out, O'Neill remaining inside. "You always know exactly what to say to cheer me up."

"Glad to help," Harry said, completely ignoring the sarcasm as he waved at O'Neill over his shoulder, walking off.

When Harry reached Hammond's office, the General looked up and actually smiled slightly at the sight of him.

"Doctor, glad you came back when you did," he said, which made Harry raise an eyebrow.

"Something wrong?"

"Most definitely. Prometheus has leaked."

Harry's right eyebrow rose to the same height as the left at hearing that.

"I thought the information of the Prometheus was as secure as can be?"

"So did I. But Major Carter was met with a reporter the other day, who claimed to have heard of the Prometheus, and she had a piece of trinium as well. Major Carter and Major Davis are currently seeing her producer, to convince her not to run the story. Hopefully, it will end there, and we can conceal all information about it."

"Even if the truth of space-travel was to be revealed, my sweetheart isn't ready," Harry said, furrowing his brow. "There are still a few modifications that need to be made. No one should be allowed to see her until then."

"If I had my way, no one without clearance would be allowed to see the Prometheus even after it's ready," Hammond said, and Harry grunted, reaching into his pocket and taking out his cigarette, putting it in his mouth without lighting it. "Now, I trust your stay with the Asgard was relaxing?"

"It was. And I made many upgrades to my Thought-Bolt, so all is well."

"That's good, because I don't think we can spare you too much in the weeks to come," Hammond said gravely. "The threat of Anubis is still out there, and we need your help in coming up with ways to defend against him. He's more technologically advanced than any other Goa'uld out there."

"About that, I have a theory on how that is," Harry said, rolling his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. "I believe Anubis is partially Ascended."

"What?" Hammond asked, his eyes widening. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, he's not corporeal," Harry said. "His essence is contained by a forcefield that allows hit to touch things. However, it's constantly struggling to get out. And according to Daniel's notes, Ascending means rising to a higher plane of existence. Knowledge may be available there that isn't available to us."

"You believe he's gotten a hold of Ancient knowledge?"

"Regarding their technology, at least, if only a small amount," Harry said, nodding. "I mean, the upgrades he had made to Zipacna's shields were way beyond what a Goa'uld was capable of. I'd say it rivals the Asgard, which doesn't bode well for earth."

Hammond was quiet for a while as he reached up, rubbing his forehead. Then, he gave Harry a look.

"Doctor, please, continue doing what you can to help us defend against him."

"Tch, you don't even have to ask," Harry said, a smirk appearing on his face. "Going up against Anubis is interesting enough for me to help you. But in the meantime, we should focus on this leak."

"Yes, we are trying to get Ms. Donovan to reveal her source to us, so that we may plug the leak," Hammond said. "I want you to head to the Prometheus, and keep working on it. Something feels... wrong about this."

"I'm getting the same feeling," Harry said with a nod. "I won't let my sweetheart out of my sight."

"Dismissed, Doctor."

"I'll see you around, General," Harry said giving a wave before leaving Hammond's office.

–

**End of chapter eighteen! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry becomes very upset when people try to hijack his sweetheart! So, once again it's up to Harry to save the day!**** Stay tuned!**


	19. Chapter 19

**ZnK here with chapter nineteen! Sorry I took so long, again... Also, I just need to tell you guys something... If I take more than one day to update, or even more than three days, please don't send me any PM's asking me if I'm going on another month-long hiatus, or why I'm not updating, or something like that. If it takes long, it just means that I can't come up with anything to write. If I take a hiatus, you can be sure that I'll let you know. Asking me things like that is just a tad annoying, and I don't tend to answer those PM's. Anyway, in this chapter, the Prometheus is hijacked, Harry loses faith and gets a bit embarrassed!**

–

"I swear on Merlin's bollocks, Aceso, if you keep this up, I'm going to deactivate you..." Harry muttered to the AI standing behind him. Ever since they came on board the Prometheus, Aceso had been pestering Harry with questions about human mating rituals, and the actual act of mating. It was like she really was a pervert...

"_It was merely a question, master. You are the master, I the creation. You have no obligation to answer me. I was merely curious,_" Aceso said softly, bowing her head to Harry, who narrowed his eyes as he looked over his shoulder at her.

"And yet you're insistent on getting an answer, since you've asked the same question eight times in the last hour..."

"_As I stated earlier, I am curious, master._"

"Just be quiet and let me focus on this."

"_May I inquire as to what you are designing?_" Aceso said, approaching Harry and looking at the holographic blueprint Harry was working on in what Harry had dubbed the holo-room, an Asgard contribution to the Prometheus. The blueprint was hovering over the table Harry was standing in front of, which had a blue, glowing surface. The hologram looked like a cylinder, which started to slim down to half its width at one end near the middle. Around the slimmed area revolved three rings.

"I call it a superdrive," Harry said simply. "Basically, it's a hyperdrive that permits intergalactic travel in a matter of hours, rather than days."

He pushed a button on the holo-table, making the hologram split up into pieces to give an exploded view. "I thought that, with me being a citizen and ally of the Asgard, while at the same time working with the SGC, we'd need some way to have me move back and forth quicker."

"_It will also serve you well in case another galaxy of interest is discovered,_" Aceso deduced, to which Harry nodded.

"That too," he said, then clicked his fingers. "That reminds me, I need to install and interface for you to use to link with the ship."

Aceso was quiet for a moment, and then said, "_Master, how did the superdrive remind you of that?_"

"Don't ask how my mind works. It just does," Harry said with a shrug.

"_I understand that something is going to happen today?_"

"You didn't listen in on my call?" Harry asked in surprise. "That's rare."

"_You gave me an order not to listen in on your calls anymore, master. Because of my prime directive, I am forced to obey your orders whether I want to or not,_" Aceso said simply.

Harry chuckled and took out a chord, connecting his control device to the holo-table. He pushed a few buttons on the control device, and the hologram sank into the table, which stopped glowing. Then, he disconnected the chord and pocketed it again.

"I think... I'm going to go take a nap," Harry decided. "They won't be arriving for a few hours, and it's not like I have anything else to do on the Prometheus right now."

"_What about the interface, master?_" Aceso asked as Harry walked off.

"I don't have what's required to build it," Harry said, the door to the holo-room slid open, allowing him to exit.

–

Harry's eyes snapped open quite suddenly as he lay in his cot in the quarters that had been one of his demands in return for designing the Prometheus, his own private quarters and lab.

"Humming?" Harry asked as he rolled off the cot and placed his ear against the floor. There was a hum going through the floor that definitely hadn't been there when he took his nap. This hum was... the hyperdrive? The hell? The hyperdrive wasn't supposed to be tested until they were given the go-ahead from Harry!

"Aceso," Harry spoke up as he got to his feet. In the corner of his quarters, Aceso's eyes lit up, and she tilted her head to the side.

"_What do you require of me, master?_"

"That hum," Harry said, pointing down at the floor. "I'm not wrong when I think that's the hyperdrive, right?"

Aceso was still for a moment, and then said, "_You are not, master. It certainly sounds like the hyperdrive has been activated, and is in the process of generating a large amount of energy._"

"Sublight engines aren't on, so that mean's we're still docked," Harry said, furrowing his brow. "The hell...?"

Gritting his teeth and muttering about incompetent engineers, Harry walked over to the phone on the wall and picked it up.

"Dr. Potter to the bridge," he said into the phone. There was no response. All the worker on the Prometheus, along with all security officers, had long since learned that when Harry called, you picked up. Therefore, this was a sign that something was very wrong. Either someone who didn't see the need to answer was at the bridge, or someone who didn't see the need to answer was there, and communications had been taken offline. Either way, there was someone on board the Prometheus who wasn't supposed to be there.

And that someone was handling the Prometheus like an amateur, and was generating energy in the hyperdrive without providing it with an outlet by having it create a hyperspace window... This made Harry angry.

Prometheus was his greatest creation yet. Slightly over a kilometer in length, four hundred meters wide (nine hundred meters at the back), and three hundred and twenty-five meters high (six hundred and fifty at the back, rising over the main body of the ship), this ship was going to be a force to be reckoned with in this galaxy. The Chiefs of Staff had wanted him to make it much smaller due to budget issues, but Harry couldn't give a damn about that. To hell with monetary issues when Harry had the opportunity to create something amazing!

It was equipped with fifty upgraded Avenger Cannons (now firing high-powered plasma blasts, courtesy of a joint project with Sujanha to improve Asgard weaponry) on each side, forty-eight railguns in total, thirty missile launchers, shielding technology on a slightly higher level than an Asgard, an incredibly powerful hyperdrive, a fighter bay that would hold thirty X-302's once they had been built, an Asgard transporter (Thor had insisted, despite Harry's assurances that he'd create his own), sublight engines capable of traveling at one hundred and seventy thousand miles per second, which was damn near the speed of light!

It was a masterpiece!

And now someone was messing with her!

Oh, no, Harry would not stand for this! Gritting his teeth, he left his quarters, seeing red.

He heard something, which made him stop. Reaching up, he pushed a few of the buttons on his new Thought-Bolt, then opened his control device and started adjusting the frequency of his built-in radio.

"_...crew, they had a zat,_" he heard Carter's voice in his head.

"_Major, the hijackers are demanding the release of Colonel Simmons and Adrian Conrad. We believe this is a rogue NID operation,_" came Major Davis' voice next, which made Harry twitch.

"NID?" he asked, and was answered with silence.

"_Er... Dr. Potter?_" Davis asked slowly.

"Yes. Now, what's this about NID on board my baby?" Harry asked dangerously.

"_Harry, a TV crew came on board the ship, with the reporter Hammond told you about. They were documenting everything, but then the crew took over the ship,_" Carter explained. "_They have Jonas, Donovan, and Martell in the engine room, and the rest are on the bridge._"

"Am I supposed to know who those last two are?"

"_The reporter and her producer._"

"Oh," Harry said, humming. "So, would anyone mind telling me why they're generating energy in the hyperdrive while we're still on the ground?"

"_They're threatening to blow up the Prometheus if we don't give them Simmons and Conrad,_" O'Neill said. "_Can't you just work your techno-magic and take over the ship from some console or something like that? You're usually good at coming up with quick solutions for these things..._"

"Well, I could do that. I could spend the next half hour taking over every single bloody command the bridge can send, but that would take too much time," Harry said, then blinked and made a mental note to install a program in the computer in his quarters that would be able to assume command of the bridge functions and lock down the bridge in case of a hijacking.

"_Can it fly?_" O'Neill asked, which almost, _almost_, made Harry growl. He gave a displeased noise instead, and O'Neill took the hint. "_Alright, stupid question._"

"_Major Carter,_" Major Davis said suddenly, "_the sublight control relay is right above you on Deck Eight. If you can get to it and sever the connection, that will ground them for sure._"

"_I found a plasma cutter in here, but it will take me a while to get through the trinium alloy._"

Harry chuckled softly.

"Alright, I must have misheard that. I thought you just said that you would cut a hole in my greatest creation yet..." he muttered, then looked at Aceso reassuringly. "And by that, I mean ship-wise, of course."

"_Of course, master._"

"Where are you, Sam?" Harry asked.

"_I'm locked in a storage room on Deck Seven._"

"You got locked in?" Harry asked with a snort. "Alright, stay put. I'm going to put an end to this."

"_You should hurry. According to the hijackers, we only have three hours before they blow the hyperdrive,_" Davis informed Harry, who hummed.

"Wow, three hours? That should give me just enough time to spend two hours and fifty minutes lazying about before I fix this problem," the mad scientist mused with a snort. "I only need ten minutes, Major. Don't start wetting your pants just yet."

Suddenly, Harry was enveloped in a bright light, and when it cleared, he found himself standing outside the shack holding the elevator that led down to the X-303 base. Standing with him were Aceso, Carter, and Jonas.

Harry blinked curiously, looking around for a moment.

"Huh... They figured out how to use the Asgard control crystals in order to use the beam transporter..." he muttered, then turned to the visibly surprised Major Davis. "Okay, Major, I take it back. You may wet your pants now."

"What, can't you just, I don't know, Appeete over there?"

"The hell?" Harry muttered, turning to look at O'Neill, who had asked the question. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, you know, your teleport thingy. The bang-and-gone thing you used to get to Thor."

"You want me to Apparate?"

"That's it."

"What the hell is Appeete? You only got a single syllable correct..." Harry said, giving O'Neill a condescending look. "If I wasn't already furious at being booted from my own creation, I'd give you a proper chewing out for not paying attention. In any case, I can't Apparate onto the ship."

"What?" Carter asked in surprise. "But I've seen you Apparate straight through shielding technology."

"Yes, and I'm not the only person in this universe who's capable of manipulating my biological energy. I'm without a doubt not the only one who can manipulate it to that level, either. So, naturally, I created a defense against it on this ship," Harry said, gesturing for the shack. "Hm... I should add some features preventing it from stopping my Apparation," he muttered and pushed a few buttons on his bolt, before making a mental note.

"Major Davis," O'Neill said, turning to the Major. "Make the arrangements."

"In the meantime, I'll contact my friends," Harry said, fishing the communicator out of his pocket. "Thor?"

"_Harry, how nice to hear from you,_" Thor said softly in response not even three seconds later. "_What can I do for you? I assume I am right in believing that you did not just contact me to make small talk?_"

"Yes you are, Thor. Um, we have a problem here..." Harry muttered. "You see... You remember Prometheus?"

"_I should, considering I added a transporter of Asgard making to the designs,_" Thor said simply.

"Yeah, well, it's kind of gotten... hijacked..." Harry mumbled in embarrassment. He hated the fact that he had been booted off his own creation. This just showed that he couldn't rely on anyone but himself. He had shown a rare bit of trust in the rest of the buffoons surrounding him, believing (or rather, hoping) that they would be able to take care of the Prometheus, which was the reason why he installed the anti-Apparation shields on the ship.

"_Did I not tell you not to prevent shielding against atomic breakdown transportation?_" Thor asked, and Harry was ninety-eight point nine percent certain that he heard a tone of smugness in the gray, formerly little, bastard's voice.

"Yeah, well, you can slap me later for believing that the Air-Force wouldn't be stupid enough to allow armed non-personnel onto the bloody ship," Harry said, ignoring the glares he got from O'Neill and Carter. "Can you give up a hand?"

"_What do you require of me, Harry?_"

"Well, I did clear up your schedule for the future for you, so you should have some spare ships available, right?"

"_Yes?_"

"So, why don't you, Freyr, and Heimdall command a couple of O'Neill's, come over here, and scare the ever-loving shite out of the hijackers?"

Thor was silent for a moment, and then said, "_Harry, your Avenger Cannons are now powerful enough that a persistent barrage can penetrate our shields. And given your love of overkill, the Prometheus has enough weapons to do so._"

"Well, shite..." Harry muttered. "Alright, I'll think of something. You just stay comfortably seated in your own ship..."

"_I will. I am certain you will think of something, Harry. Good luck._"

Harry grunted as he pocketed the communicator.

"So, not even the Asgard can help?" O'Neill asked in surprise. "How freaking powerful did you make that ship?"

"In theory, it should be able to defeat four O'Neill-class ships while sustaining heavy damage," Harry muttered. "One can be dealt with without sustaining any damage, two with minimal damage. For four, the shields would be down and it would be near destroyed by the end."

"And you didn't come up with a way to defend the ship if it was hijacked?" Carter asked, her eyebrows shooting up. "That's... surprising, coming from you."

"Oh, I do have a backup plan, but it's pretty useless in this case," Harry said, lighting a cigarette.

"What's the plan?" Jonas asked.

"I have fifty sentry bots on standby in the ship," Harry said, "to be activated upon the ship being hijacked and the emergency protocol is enacted, at which point they would go on a search and destroy mission."

"So enact the protocol," O'Neill said simply. "Or is it useless because you can only do it from inside the ship?"

"No, it's useless because their prime directives state that they aren't allowed to harm either me, the Asgard, Tok'ra, or humans of earth," Harry muttered. "Why, you ask? Because I didn't think that any of you would be foolish enough to let the most advanced ship this planet has ever helped build get hijacked by people from your own planet!"

"Hey, ease up!" O'Neill ordered. "I don't think you're being very fair."

"Oh, really? What do you want me to say? Good job?" Harry asked, poking O'Neill in the chest. "Great idea, not thoroughly searching every inch of the camera crew and their equipment before letting them on board the ship capable of single-handedly wiping out all life on this planet? Oh, but they were just cameramen, so of course, they couldn't possibly have any bad intentions regarding the ship, right? After all, who would ever think to use that as a cover? Surely not the NID, who have been harassing you for alien technology for years now!"

O'Neill opened his mouth, but Harry held up a hand, stopping him.

"Shut it for a moment and let me think," he said, as though it was O'Neill who had just gone on a sarcastic rant. "Alright, the shields are up, preventing anyone from coming aboard, that's for damn sure. The hull prevents me from Apparating inside... I can't use the sentries, and neither can I use Aceso nor Frank, due to their prime directives..."

Harry was quiet for a minute, then snapped his fingers.

"They want you to hand over two of your prisoners, right?" he asked O'Neill, who nodded. "For that, they will need to lower their shields, if only for a second. I can cloak myself and follow them onto the ship. I just need to make some modifications to my cloaking device so that it includes a sensor cloak, too."

"Sensor cloak?" Jonas asked curiously.

"Well, even if I'm invisible, the sensors on the ship can still pick up my lifesign, which means that they can lock onto my signature and beam my arse out here again," Harry explained, taking his control device off his arm. "Alright, this could work. Give me a couple of minutes..."

–

It was at the very end of the three-hour deadline that Simmons and Conrad were escorted aboard the Prometheus. There was a bridge leading over to the Prometheus from the walkway that led to the elevator up to the surface. The security officers who escorted the two prisoners were ordered to stop at the end of the bridge and send the prisoners over, which they did without question.

The hijackers really should have been smarter, Harry thought as he, cloaked, followed them into the ship and immediately broke off. But then, they were dealing with the same Air-Force that had let them onto the ship in the first place, so they had probably expected those they were dealing with to be of the same level of intelligence.

Harry had to admit, he was disappointed with Carter. That O'Neill hadn't requested that the camera crew be searched wasn't surprising, but the fact that someone smart like Carter hadn't done so... So disappointing...

Though this hijacking proved to be somewhat beneficial, at least. It gave Harry ideas for things to add to the ship, things that he hadn't thought about before. Like an exception in the anti-Apparation shields, direct control override in his control device, and this and that.

Stopping at the nearest control panel, Harry pulled if off, powering down his cloak enough to make him visible to the naked eye, but not enough to make him visible to the lifesign detectors. Then, he connected a chord to his control device, linking it to the ship.

"Alright, engines... gone..." he muttered, tapping in commands as he sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall. "Ah, there we go. Weapons... are now offline... Hyperdrive... powering down..."

He spent a good twenty minutes sitting in that corridor, taking over commands thanks to the emergency override program he had written once he had finished adjusting his cloaking device.

"And..." Harry said, pushing Enter on his control device with a grin. "...lockdown!"

Suddenly, all the lights in the ship went out, and Harry had the feeling that the hijackers would be getting very nervous right around now. Of course, since the ship was put into lockdown, and only Harry could override it, the locked doors prevented the Air-Force from just breaking in and swarming the ship, so it was all up to Harry. Just how he liked it.

Switching his eye over to nightvision, Harry jogged off, powering up his cloak as well.

Meanwhile, on the bridge, Colonel Simmons, formerly of the NID, along with his four underlings and Adrian Conrad, were looking around the darkness in alarm.

"What's going on?" Simmons asked the only female on board, Jones, who was working on her laptop, which she had used to hack into the controls.

"I-I don't know! Something has taken over the ship. I can't get access to anything. The ship is completely powered down!"

"Well, fix it!"

"I'm trying, sir!" Jones said, tapping away frantically at her laptop. Then, her eyes widened when a symbol of a skull and crossbones appeared on her screen. The skull had a bolt through it, and its mouth was moving as a cackle sounded from the laptop. "It's Potter! He did something!"

"I thought you threw him off the ship!"

"I did, sir! I don't know how he's doing it! Nothing can control the ship from the outside."

"Maybe he sneaked aboard when the Colonel and Conrad came on board?" Smith guessed with a shrug.

"No, the sensors indicated that only two life signs came on board."

"You're working under the impression that I can't hide from sensors I designed myself," came Harry Potter's voice through the darkness. Everyone who had a gun raised them in alarm, aiming all around. "I'm surprised, though. I actually underestimated you by thinking that you would be too dumb to figure out how to use the transporter."

"Where are you?" Simmons demanded, taking a gun from one of his underlings to defend himself.

"You seriously just asked that question?" Harry asked with a chuckle. "You seem to be confused as to the purpose of a cloaking device. Now, although this hijacking demonstrated a few upgrades I will have to make to this ship, you thoroughly embarrassed me today. Normally, I'd just knock you unconscious and that'd be that, but I really want to hurt you first. So..." The sound of knuckles cracking was heard. "...prepare yourselves..."

–

"From what I understand, you lost your temper yesterday," General Hammond said the next day as Harry stood in his office, looking uncaring as usual. "Mind telling me why you saw fit to do that?"

"Well, General, I guess it was because when I agreed to design the Prometheus for you, I had honestly expected the Air-Force to see it for what it was, an incredibly powerful warship, and I expected you to well enough that I wouldn't have to come up with security measures against humans from earth," Harry said coldly, giving Hammond an equally cold stare. "I believed that such a thing would be obvious."

"That was a blunder on our part," Hammond admitted, nodding slowly. "I quite honestly don't understand how it happened. The security should have thoroughly searched not only the crew, but also their equipment."

"I trust such a blunder won't happen again?" Harry asked as he took out his lighter, lighting his cigarette, showing just how much less he thought of the Air-Force now, by the fact that he was smoking in Hammond's office for the first time. Hammond seemed to notice this immediately, as he gave a firm nod.

"Don't worry, Doctor. Your designs won't end up in anyone else's hands."

"Good," Harry said, nodding back, before turning around and heading out of the office. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to add some extra security to the Prometheus."

"Before you go, Doctor, I need to talk to you about something," Hammond said, stopping Harry, who turned around to look at him. "Upon examination, the doctors found that Adrian Conrad suffered from a broken spine, several broken ribs and ruptured organs, both arms broken, and a skull fracture, and Colonel Simmons had very similar injuries. Was that really necessary?"

"Most definitely," Harry said simply, before leaving Hammond's office.

–

_Journal, January 24th, 2003,_

_Despite this journal now being kept in my head, I seem to have neglected making any long entries as of late. In fact, I believe the last entry was roughly one month ago, whereupon I listed the new upgrades to the Prometheus' security systems. I have made another upgrade since then, though. I have adjusted the prime directives of the security bots on the ship. They are now allowed to attack humans, but only human intruders who pose a threat to the ship, the crew, or earth itself._

_Lately, I have found myself coming to a stop when it comes to progress. Sure, I have the work on my superdrive, but that's pretty much it. I have already finished Frank's flight tech, and he is delighted. I have been thinking about starting my research on nanotechnology. I have been putting that off for far too long._

_But right now, I-_

Harry's eyes snapped open right in the middle of his journal entry as the klaxons signaling an incoming wormhole suddenly started blaring. Being very bored at the moment, Harry shot out of his chair in his lab and rushed to the Gate Room.

When he got there, Carter, O'Neill, and Jonas were already there. The Russian SG team had returned ahead of schedule, and they had an injured alien with them, which was strange, since bringing aliens back to the SGC without permission was forbidden.

"I am Alebran," the alien said, looking at O'Neill. Apparently the Colonel had asked who he was.

"Alebran has vital information regarding the Goa'uld Nirrti," Colonel Ivanov said, gesturing for the alien.

"Nirrti?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow in interest. "What has she been up to?"

"She..." Alebran started, having some difficulty speaking, apparently. "She is experimenting on my people, transforming us..."

"I knew you would want to know what Nirrti was doing to these people," Ivanov said, staring at Harry, "since it was you who allowed her to go free."

"You look fine," Harry said to Alebran, completely ignoring how Ivanov was trying to make him feel bad. "Must be internal, then."

General Hammond and Fraiser entered the Gate Room from the other doorway, Hammond giving Alebran a surprised look.

"Colonel, what's going on?"

"Old Sergei brought this guy back from 367 without authorization, sir," O'Neill said, gesturing for Alebran.

"You'd better have a damn good reason," Hammond told Ivanov, giving him a stern look.

"General, sir, Alebran and his people are innocent victims of Nirrti," Ivanov said seriously. "I felt certain you would wish to act."

"Colonel Ivanov has promised you would help us," Alebran said.

"Has he now?" O'Neill asked, and the stern look he gave Ivanov looked eerily similar to Hammond's.

Alebran made to speak again, but winced and shuddered from pain, which Fraiser noticed.

"Are you in pain?"

"It is nothing I cannot endure," Alebran said, swallowing painfully. "Please, I must know if you will help my people?"

"Sir, with your permission, I'd like to take him to Isolation Room Three," Fraiser told Hammond, who nodded.

"Very well."

Later found Harry standing at a bed in the isolation room, in which Alebran lay, sipping some water. Fraiser and other medical staff were looking at charts and working nearby, while Hammond, SG-1, and SG-4 surrounded the bed.

"We found him near the Stargate after we performed a recon of Nirrti's fortress, or should I say, he found us," Ivanov told them. "Alebran has asked for our help to save his people being held prisoner inside."

"I thought that she was helping us. Then I saw one of my people die in such a horrible way... I realized..." Alebran took a deep breath, swallowing again. He was sweating heavily. "When I questioned her methods... she released me."

"She let you go?" Jonas asked in surprise.

"I was well enough to return home, she said. When I arrived back in the village, everyone was dead. She lied to us. Those of us she took away, we were the last of our people. She was using us..."

"You look okay to me," O'Neill observed, looking him over.

"Please, do not be fooled by my appearance," Alebran said. "I spent just as much time within the machine as the others. I know that I have been changed. Inside I am not like I was before."

"What kind of machine?" Carter asked curiously.

"It's one that sees inside of us. It allows her to manipulate that which we are made of," Alebran explained, which made Harry blink.

"Genetic manipulation?" he asked, his eyebrows rising slowly. Then he sighed deeply, and his shoulders slumped. "And here I thought she was doing something that might be worth a look..."

"Do you believe Nirrti is attempting to create a hok'tar?" Teal'c asked.

"I am not familiar with that term," Ivanov said, furrowing his brow.

"It means 'advanced human,'" Jonas explained.

"Nirrti is interested in creating the perfect human host in order to increase her power," Teal'c explained as well.

"This is bad," Carter said seriously. "With a machine that can alter DNA and a population with which to experiment, Nirrti could create a new host, or even alter the DNA of her current one."

"I suppose it's not all bad," Harry said with a shrug. "I guess the machine is worth a look. I might learn something from it, not that I need to learn anything more about genetic manipulation."

"Well, obviously we can't let Nirrti create a hok'tar," Jonas decided.

"As you know, Nirrti does not have the power and resources of the other Goa'uld," Ivanov said. "She has only a small number of Jaffa in her service. I believe her capture, or if necessary, her assassination is quite possible."

"Sir?" O'Neill said, looking to Hammond, who gave a nod.

"Agreed."

"Can you get us into that fortress?" O'Neill asked Alebran. The alien shook his head, shivering heavily.

"No, I cannot go back."

"We're offering to help your people, Alebran," Hammond said, but Alebran shook his head again, his shivering turning into outright shaking.

"No, there is no time. I feel it. Something's happening."

"Alebran believes Nirrti has the power to kill him even here," Ivanov explained. Harry immediately reached out and placed his hand against Alebran's chest, closing his eyes.

"His body is in an uproar," he concluded, his brow furrowing. "Wow, this is intense..."

"I-It's too late..." Alebran uttered, and Harry nodded slowly. Then, yellow electricity started arcing around his arm, shooting straight into Alebran's chest. Alebran stiffened for a second, and then slumped, completely still. Fraiser's eyes widened as she rushed over, taking his pulse.

"You killed him!"

"Euthanasia," Harry explained, pulling his hand back and skillfully ignoring the shocked looks he got. "It would have been a significantly more painful death awaiting him otherwise. His body is breaking down on a cellular level. Look."

Harry pointed at the body, showing that something that looked like water was dribbling out of his nose and ears. Harry lit a cigarette, then took three steps back, waiting.

Within seconds, the body completely broke down, dissolving into water, which splashed over the bed and onto the floor.

"Well," Harry said into the shocked silence, puffing slowly on his cigarette. "It would seem that Nirrti has an interesting new toy. And I'm going to steal it from her."

–

**End of chapter nineteen! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Nirrti returns, and Harry is very interested in what she's been doing, and what kind of machine she has in her possession!**** Stay tuned!**


	20. Chapter 20

**ZnK here with chapter twenty! In this chapter, Harry meets Nirrti, and meets his most hated enemy of all... politicians!**

–

Harry exited the Stargate with SG-1 and the Russian SG-4, both teams with their weapons at the ready. He had decided not to bring Frank with him, for reasons unknown to him. He just... didn't feel like it, for some reason. Maybe it was because he didn't want Frank to kill Nirrti the second she stuck her head out, or something?

"So, this is the path leading to the fortress," Ivanov said, pointing down a path leading into the forest surrounding them. "Guarded by Jaffa."

"How many?" O'Neill asked.

"Only ten."

O'Neill paused and thought about it, then said, "Alright. Ivanov, you're with us."

Ivanov turned around and gave his team orders in Russian to guard the Gate, and then they walked off.

Nirrti's fortress was nestled halfway up a mountain, but it would be better to call it a palace, rather than a fortress. Harry was certain it was secure like a fortress, but with the design, it looked more like a palace.

The mad scientist opted to stay back, waiting while SG-1 and Ivanov took out the Jaffa guarding the path leading up to the palace, distracting them with C-4, then shooting them when they looked away. Not really the most honorable tactic, but who could give a damn about that?

"Ivanov, stay out here for now. Watch our six," O'Neill's voice came from the radio in Harry's pocket.

"Yes, sir," Ivanov replied.

"Harry, come on. We're probably gonna need you up there."

"I'm coming, Colonel," Harry said, before hopping out from behind his cover and sliding down the hill, down to where SG-1 was waiting, and together they made their way up to the palace.

When they got there, they found the place strangely empty. Harry walked behind SG-1, who moved through the palace in staggered formation. Carter, who was ahead of the rest, stopping and gestured behind a wall.

"Colonel," she whispered, and the rest made their way around the corner to see a group of natives cowering in fear. They were wearing tattered clothing, and one of them even had a tattered hood covering his head, and for good reason, from what Harry could tell. Those parts of their bodies that were visible were horribly malformed, so Harry didn't blame them for wanting to hide themselves.

"Please, don't hurt us..." the hooded man pleaded pathetically, which made Harry click his tongue.

"We're not here to hurt anyone," Jonas said, slowly walking up to them. "We've come to rescue you. Take you from this place."

"No, no, we cannot leave," the hooded man insisted, shaking his head.

"One step at a time there, Jonas," O'Neill said to Jonas, before looking to the hooded man. "Where's Nirrti?"

"She is not here," the hooded man said.

"Are you expecting her back?" Carter asked.

"Of course. For our treatments."

"My name is Jonas," Jonas said gently, obviously taking pity on these people.

"I am Wodan," the hooded man said. He lowered his hood and raised his head, to show that it, too, was extremely deformed, kind of like one who was the result of a little too much inbreeding. Harry was almost unable to stop himself from asking if the man's mother and father were brother and sister.

"We've come from a place called earth," Jonas said. "To help, all of you," he said as the others came into the light, showing that they were equally deformed.

"That is not necessary. Nirrti is helping us," Wodan said, which made O'Neill blink as he lowered his weapon.

"Excuse me?"

"She cares for us. Nirrti is our god," Wodan said with something that might have been a smile on his face.

"Nirrti is of a race called the Goa'uld," Teal'c said.

"They're parasitical beings that use our kind as hosts," Carter explained, which kind of stumped Wodan from the looks of things, as his gaze went back and forth between Carter and Teal'c.

"We are very ill. Nirrti is curing us of our sickness."

"That is most unlikely," Teal'c said.

"When the god Nirrti came, a great plague had befallen our people. We were dying. With the machine, Nirrti has kept us alive."

Wodan made a gestured for a machine in the next room, which immediately caught Harry's eye. It consisted of a platform, above which was a large, organge-ish crystal. In front of the device was a control panel.

"Harry," O'Neill said, and Harry took that as his cue, walking over to the machine and inspecting it.

"Oh, this is definitely Ancient," Harry announced as he walked around the machine and stood behind the control panel, looking over the crystals. "Give me ten minutes. I'll figure out how it works."

"Can you at least tell what it does?" O'Neill asked, to which Harry nodded.

"Well, judging by our guest, it's obviously a machine designed for genetic manipulation," the mad scientist said as he took a crystal out of the control panel and held it up to the light, looking through it. "Gene deconstruction, gene construction, gene modification, gene enhancement, I think this could do anything with your genes. Pick them apart, modify them, then put them together again. Wish I had something like this back when I was starting out."

"Ah," O'Neill uttered, then turned to Wodan. "Don't take this the wrong way, friend, but if this is cured..." He huffed and shook his head, clearly unsure how to continue. Wodan, however, merely smiled.

"My brother Alebran once looked as I do now. In time, she made him whole again."

"Alebran, you say?" O'Neill asked, biting his lip. He seemed conflicted as to whether he should tell Wodan or not. Obviously, Teal'c had no reservations about doing so.

"Your brother is dead."

"Nirrti allowed him to return to our village," Wodan explained, still smiling.

"There's no one left alive at your village," Jonas said, shaking his head. "Alebran told us himself."

"Wha...?" Wodan uttered, his eyes widening. Harry, looking up from the control panel, only just now noticed that the man had another eye growing out of the side of his skull.

"Ew..." he uttered, shaking his head.

"Might have been a different Alebran. It's a popular name," O'Neill said, giving warning looks to Teal'c and Jonas. "The point is, we need to know exactly when and where Nirrti's coming back."

"Very soon. And when she comes, she will punish you," another man, this one at least somewhat normal, if you didn't count the fact that he only had three fingers on each hand, said. The left side of his face was scarred, and his left eye was closed.

"Your people were never sick," Jonas said. "Nirrti's been lying to you."

"No," Harry announced as he activated the machine, and what looked like a holographic DNA strain appeared rotating over the platform. A large amount of text rolled down in front of him, and he looked it over. "No, according to the logs, a plague has been removed from several genetic structures."

"It is possible she discovered them in this condition and took advantage of their situation," Teal'c reasoned.

"She brought me to this place," the bald, three-fingered man said. "She gave me back my life."

Harry tuned out the rest of the conversation, focusing instead on figuring out how the device worked, storing all his discoveries in the database installed in his bolt. He wasn't brought back into the conversation until O'Neill said, "Jonas, Teal'c, take these fine folks someplace where they can be comfortable for a while. Carter, Harry, figure out that thing."

"I work better alone," Harry announced, looking up to smile at Carter. "No offense, Sam, but hooking up earth tech to this thing and going through the process of translating the data would waste too much time."

"I don't like having you along, Harry," Carter said, giving Harry an amused look. "You make me feel like a blundering novice..."

This made Harry laugh as he waved her off, then went back to the machine.

Harry was alone for about twenty minutes, allowed to work in peace, before his radio sparked to life, and O'Neill's voice said, "_Carter, report._"

There was no response. This made Harry raise an eyebrow in interest, which grew to realization when neither Jonas nor Teal'c answered, either.

"_Harry,_" O'Neill said, and Harry picked up his radio.

"Yeah?"

"_Seen Carter, Teal'c, or Jonas?_"

"Not since they walked with Wodan and the others. They've probably been locked up or knocked out, or something," Harry said casually, shrugging.

"_Alright, stay put, I'm on my way._"

"Whatever, take your time."

Harry looked up from the controls when a ring transporter activated near the doorway, and when the rings rose to the ceiling again, two Jaffa were seen standing there. The two noticed Harry and readied their staff weapons, but Harry gave two careless waves of his hands. Two flashes of silver later, the two Jaffa collapsed to the ground with their throats slit.

"You know, if you're planning on moving around me and take me out from behind, I should warn you that such an approach would end in nothing but failure," Harry said into the silence, a smirk appearing on his face.

The air shimmered across from him, and Nirrti faded into view, a zat in her hand. He had to admit, she was dressed in a much more attractive fashion now than she had back when he had seen her last.

"How did you know?" Nirrti asked, tilting her head to the side. Harry opened his mouth to respond, but Nirrti suddenly spun to point her zat to the side, firing it at O'Neill, who had just been taking aim at her. The zat shot hit him, and he tensed up, gritting his teeth, before collapsing to the floor, unconscious.

"Nice reflexes," Harry praised, smiling at Nirrti.

"Thank you. Now, how did you know I was here?" Nirrti asked again.

"Your cloaking device hides you from view, but you will need a lot more than that to hide from me."

"Impressive," Nirrti said, looking at the bolt. "I see you have upgraded since last we met."

"Oh, yes, keeping up with the latest fashion is a bit of a hobby of mine," Harry said, smirking. "Smaller, more compact bolts are in this season."

"Still, if you value your life, I am going to need you to take Colonel O'Neill down to the cells and join your team in there," Nirrti said, which made Harry's eyes shoot up in surprise.

"I'm sorry, I must have heard you wrong," he said as he walked around the machine, slowly advancing on the Goa'uld. "Did you just threaten me?"

"Yes."

"You're going to need a lot more Jaffa for that."

"I don't need them," Nirrti said, not even looking unnerved as Harry came closer. He found out why a second later.

"Heh, how interesting," he uttered as he felt himself unable to move, as though he was chained to the floor. He had to struggle to so much as raise his hand. He slowly turned his head to the side to see Wodan standing there, his hand raised with a look of concentration on his face. Every time Harry moved, a muscle under Wodan's eye twitched, which made Harry smile.

"Telekinesis," he deduced as he turned to look at Nirrti again. "I knew you had given it to someone, but I am surprised you let him live after giving him such a power."

"His powers has its uses," Nirrti said as she raised the zat in her hand, aiming it at Harry. "For example, it gives me the opportunity to do this."

The zat fired, and all turned black for Harry.

–

When Harry blinked his eyes open, he found himself in a dark cell. Outside the cell were many more deformed people, shifting around fearfully. He was alone in his cell, but O'Neill and Carter were in the cell next to his, and next to their cell were Jonas and Teal'c.

"Good morning," Harry grunted as he sat up, stretching. "Is it just me, or does getting hit by a zat make every muscle in your body feel all tense and awkward?"

"It's not just you," O'Neill said, his back against the bars separating their cell from Harry's. "But now that you're awake, we can bust out."

"No need," Harry said as he got off the cot and stretched again. The fifth light on his bolt lit up, and the bolt turned five times. "I'll be out soon, anyway."

"Oh?" O'Neill asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I mean, Nirrti finds me the most interesting of us, so she'll want to study me in that machine. She'll call me up there, she'll study me, and she'll cream her knickers at what she finds."

Noise was heard, and they all looked to the stairs to see Wodan and Three-Fingers coming down. Three-Fingers was half-carrying Ivanov, who looked unconscious.

"Woodman, buddy," O'Neill said as they approached his cell. "Listen, I think we're dealing with a bit of a misunderstanding here."

"Do you really think Nirrti will keep you alive with these powers after she'd finished her experiments?" Carter asked. "She's using you."

Wodan raised his hand, raising the cell door in the process, and Three-Fingers dropped Ivanov to the floor, then shoved him inside, which caused O'Neill and Carter to come over and drag him to the cot. The cell doors closed, and Wodan moved over to Harry's cell, which made the mad scientist smirk.

"No need to bother with the doors, mates," he said, before Apparating over to the foot of the stairs, looking at the two deformed men. "Are you coming?"

The two visibly surprised men cautiously approached Harry, but escorted him up the stairs nonetheless, where they found Nirrti waiting behind the control panel of the machine, flanked by two brand new Jaffa.

"Dr. Potter," Nirrti said, smirking at Harry. "I am pleased to have such an excellent subject. Step inside."

The Goa'uld gestured for the device, and Harry smirked right back at her as he stepped onto the platform. The machine activated, showing the DNA strain again. Then, a different setting activated, showing several atoms rotating around him as a feeling went through his body that we was pretty unfamiliar with. It wasn't quite pain, more like discomfort, as if his body was being broken down one cell at a time and studied. Well, it didn't feel quite like that, but since he had figured out what the machine did, he knew what was going on.

"Oh, my," Nirrti uttered, her eyes widening at the results she was getting from her study. "Let's see if we can make you even better..."

She pressed and moved crystals, and Harry was very pleased to see her brow furrowing in confusion.

"Do you think I haven't figured out that my cells would be incredibly valuable?" he asked her with a smirk. "No one but me can tamper with them, no matter how sophisticated the technology is."

Nirrti was quiet for a moment. Then, she smirked again.

"I see. Wodan."

Once more, Harry felt the telekinetic restraint on his body as Nirrti nodded to one of her Jaffa as the machine was deactivated. The Jaffa raised a zat, then shot him.

When Harry's eyes opened again, he wasn't on the cot in his cell anymore. Instead, he was laying on a very comfortable couch, surrounded by even more comfortable pillows. The room was dimly lit, but judging by the decoration, it was clearly a bedchamber. As he sat up, Harry realized that he wasn't wearing his coat, which was slung over a nearby chair. In front of him, lounging on a chaise, was Nirrti, drinking wine.

"You know, you could have just asked me to come here."

"I didn't want to risk you escaping," Nirrti said, and only just now did Harry notice that she was wearing a different outfit, an admittedly very beautiful dress, which was open at the chest to reveal her sizable cleavage. An image of Sujanha's cleavage flashed through Harry's mind, and he had to curse Nym for getting him interested in such things.

"Nirrti, please, surely Wodan has told you of my peculiar ability by now?" Harry said, smirking at her.

"He did. However, he did not do so until after I had you knocked out," Nirrti said, sipping her wine. "You are very different from the others. Not just your mind, but also your body."

"I have to admit, it doesn't get as much appreciation as it should," Harry said, nodding slowly. "Well, the Asgard sure appreciate it, considering my genes helped make them strong again."

"I could make you even more powerful than you already are," Nirrti told Harry, who chuckled.

"Doubtful. I think I've passed you in the genetic manipulation department."

Nirrti smirked and set her glass down, before getting off the chaise, walking over to Harry.

"Why are you working with the Tau'ri? Surely, you must realize that you are capable of much more than the petty tasks that life among them can offer?" she said as she sat down next to Harry and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Harry's eyebrow rose as one of her hands moved down to unbutton his shirt.

"If I could study you, and could create the perfect hok'tar, we could rule the galaxy together," Nirrti whispered, nuzzling Harry's ear. Her fingers ran across the stitches in his chest as her hand slipped into his shirt, which made him shiver slightly.

"You say that as if ruling the galaxy is something I desire," he said, turning his head to look at her.

"It is the desire of every single creature in existence," Nirrti whispered, staring into Harry's eyes. "Everyone wants to rule, but only few are capable of such a thing, like you and me. The key to making the perfect hok'tar is in your genes. I need you to let me unlock it."

"Hm, now that _does_ sound tempting..." Harry said, nodding slowly. "And your methods of persuasion are, I admit, very effective... But there's a problem."

"Problem?" Nirrti asked with a smirk. "I know there isn't one. You are not the type of man who would even shed a tear even if I were to eradicate all life on earth. That is why I want you."

"But there is still a problem," Harry said, staring into Nirrti's eyes. "You have very beautiful eyes, did you know that?"

"Thank you."

"Whenever I look at them, I get this amazing urge to take my scalpel and cut them out of their sockets," Harry said, grinning slowly. "I want to dissect you, and turn your entrails into a necklace. Kind of gets in the way of us ruling together, doesn't it?"

By now, the smirk had disappeared from Nirrti's face, and she moved back, her hand coming out from within Harry's shirt. She made to stand, but Harry's hand shot up, pressing against her chest. There was a flash of yellow, and Nirrti's eyes widened as she slumped down on the couch like a boned fish.

"I want you to know that I think there is a very small part of me that actually does care," Harry said slowly as he got to his feet and walked over to his coat, buttoning up his shirt again. He grabbed the coat and put it on, before turning to Nirrti. "It is a nice idea, the whole ruling thing. It truly is a shame we didn't meet six years ago, before I got involved with the SGC. If you had been the one to allow me to study the Stargate, if you were the one who allowed me to travel the galaxy, discovering new things... it would have been great, and I would have been a much different man..."

Harry hummed softly as he reached into the pocket of his coat and took out a cigarette, lighting it. Because of the anti-theft charms on his coat, they had been unable to rob him of his possessions, so everything was in its place.

"Don't worry, it's only temporary paralysis. I temporarily disrupted the signals sent from your brain to tell your limbs to move, and I also removed your ability to speak. All offense intended, your voice is kind of annoying. It's a very basic manipulation of my body's wavelength. Wodan must have thought we'd get a little dirty, since he left."

Harry walked over to Nirrti and picked her up bridal style, then carried her over to the chaise, laying her down. Then, he reached into an inner pocket of his coat and took out his field toolkit, opening it and taking out a scalpel.

"Like I said, Nirrti, I do care, if only slightly," he said as he leaned down to stare into Nirrti's wide, panicking eyes with a wide grin appearing on his face as he held up the scalpel. "That is why, and I want you to know this, I will get the most amazing sense of pleasure from what I am about to do to you."

Harry chuckled. The chuckle, however, slowly built into a laugh, which soon became an almost maniacal cackle.

–

Harry came down the stairs to the cells, where the Legion of the Deformed were hiding. A cigarette was dangling from his mouth, and he happily strolled over to the cells, getting the attention of everyone down there.

"Where is Nirrti?" Wodan asked, which made Harry raise an eyebrow as he slowly turned to look at him. He took a long drag on his cigarette, then exhaled slowly, before a grin appeared on his face.

"Which part?"

Everyone went wide-eyed at hearing that.

"Y... You killed her?" Wodan asked, his eyes wide as saucers. "How could you...?"

"Oh, it was easy. With a scalpel, it's a fairly simple process, cutting someone to pieces," Harry said, puffing on his cigarette. "She was going on and on about how we could rule together, and it was getting on my nerves. Now, I know what you're thinking," he added, pointing at Wodan. "But you should know that I didn't even put half my strength into struggling against your telekinesis last time. So don't try anything. You, Egar."

Three-Fingers flinched at being addressed by Harry, who gave him his usual half-lidded stare.

"From what I gathered from Nirrti's mind, you have telepathy, yeah?"

"Yes?"

"Well, I'm going to lower my shields slightly, giving you the instructions on how to use the DNA resequencer up there. Make sure to memorize it, so you can cure yourselves, alright?"

Harry stared right into Egar's good eye, which narrowed in concentration. Harry felt the man's presence in his head, and he also felt him bashing against his Occlumency shields, but the shields held strong. Once he felt Egar leave his head, Harry looked to SG-1.

"Alright, let's get Ivanov up there to be healed. He doesn't look too spry."

The mad scientist gave Wodan a glare, and the bulgy-headed telekinetic was quick to raise the bars to allow SG-1 to leave.

–

Surprisingly, Harry didn't get as big a scolding as he had expected for his sadistic treatment of Nirrti as he had expected. In fact, all he had to do was give Hammond his assurances that he wouldn't be doing anything like that on earth, or against allies, as though that wasn't completely obvious.

Not only didn't he get away without Hammond even trying to punish him, but he had actually been invited to the Pentagon. He didn't know why, though. There was some kind of meeting taking place inside the conference room Harry was waiting outside of, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

The doors opened suddenly, and a female Air-Force lieutenant smiled at him.

"You can come in now, Doctor."

"Any idea what this is about?" Harry asked as he walked through the door, heading down the short corridor that led to the conference room.

"You weren't informed?" the lieutenant asked in surprise.

"Nope."

"I'm sure General Hammond will inform you," she said as they reached the doors. She gave him one last smile, and then walked off. Harry shrugged and opened the doors, stepping inside, immediately freezing at what he saw.

Inside, sitting at a table shaped like a hollow half-circle, were several people. He only recognized three, of them, and those people were General Hammond, Colonel Chekov, and Senator Kinsey. Sitting along the table were three more people, with a flag in front of each, a British, a French, and a Chinese.

"Oh, bloody hell..." Harry said, flinching in realization. "Politics..."

Giving off an unnerved "Eesh..." Harry turned around and made to leave.

"Dr. Potter," Major Davis, standing in front of a screen in front of the table, said, stopping him. "Good of you to come. Please, join me."

Harry stood with his back turned for a moment, then heaved a great sigh and headed over to the screen to stand next to Davis, his arms crossed.

"Gentlemen, this is Doctor Harry Potter. He's the mastermind behind the X-302, and the X-303. In fact, if it wasn't for him, I doubt the Prometheus would even be half as powerful as it is today."

"Not that I don't love having my ego stroked until it purrs, why am I here?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, looking around. "I have things to do."

"We needed you here to tell them about the deal we have made regarding the technology you have provided us with," Hammond explained.

"Ookay... And what's Senator Bitchy doing here?" Harry asked, gesturing for Kinsey, who bristled at the nickname.

"He invited himself, I assure you," Hammond said. "These ambassadors are very upset about the fact that the United States are in possession of such a large amount of advanced technology."

"Fucking called it," Harry said, a satisfied smirk on his face. "Have you told them of what's out there?"

"We have."

"Wow, talk about pathetic..." Harry muttered, turning to look at the French and Chinese ambassadors. "So, they've told you about Anubis?"

"They have," the Chinese ambassadors said, glaring at Harry. "And why, if you are an independent man, have you not decided to share this technology with France, or China, or even your own country?"

"Because I didn't bloody feel like it," Harry said with a shrug. "The Stargate is operated out of the United States. The Air-Force has the most experience in it, they have a better understanding of aliens and the Goa'uld than the rest of the world. That's why I let them rent the Prometheus, and everything else."

"This is unacceptable!" the Chinese ambassador said angrily. "Why are the United States allowed to possess such incredible weaponry that drastically alters the balance of power on this planet?!"

Harry blinked several times, then turned to Hammond, pointing at the Chinese ambassador.

"You... did tell them what it's all for, right?"

"We did," Hammond said with a nod.

"Bloody self-important, jealous..." Harry grumbled to himself, directing a cold glare at the Chinese ambassador. "I have allowed the United States to rent my designs, under the strict rule that everything they create belongs to me, and they are only to use it in the defense of this planet. I am no longer a citizen of this planet, and therefore don't fall under its jurisdiction. I answer to a much more intelligent and powerful government. I have the right to pack up my things and just bugger off, if I want to. No one can stop me. I have been welcomed to the United States as a guest, and in return I offer my help in defense of this planet. The United States aren't allowed to steal my designs. Everything they build that involves my designs are under strict supervision from myself.

"Anubis is out there, and he has a stick up his arse and a sun-sized grudge against earth, and you're sitting here, acting like a little baby!" Harry didn't lose his temper very often, but politics really pissed him off. "'Oh, boo-bloody-hoo, my neighbor has a bigger toy than me, so let me start stomping my feet and scream my throat raw in anger until someone gives me one, too!' Bugger off, you tosser! They're my designs, and I decide who gets to rent them. But if that's not good enough, then..."

Harry sighed, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and looked at Hammond.

"General Hammond, I'm sorry, but this just won't work out. I'll be taking the Prometheus and my 302's, and everything else I've designed, and I'll bugger off back home to Othala. I'll make sure to let my government know that this planet is filled with nothing but bickering, loud-mouthed apes who aren't worth defending. Good luck in the defense of the planet without me."

Harry gave the ambassadors the longbowman salute, giving them the coldest glare he could muster.

"Here you go, lads, stick this straight up your jacksie."

Harry scoffed and made to leave, but just then, there was a bright light next to Harry, and when it cleared, Thor was revealed, sitting in his command chair in front of the ambassadors.

"Hello?" the British ambassador, a shocked expression on his face, an expression which was shared by the other ambassadors.

"Hello. I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet," Thor said, looking around slowly.

"Thank you for coming, Thor," Hammond said, nodding. "You look strong."

"Thank you, General Hammond, and it is my pleasure," Thor said, nodding. "The Asgard are in your debt."

"Your debt?" the British ambassador asked curiously.

"SG-1, under the command of General Hammond, has saved my people and yours on many occasions, and that is without counting the aid Harry here has provided my people with. We are not only allies against the Goa'uld, we are true friends."

"Thor... what are you doing here?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. Thor glanced at him, and the corner of his mouth curved up into a hint of a smirk.

"I will get to that in a moment."

"Commander Thor," Kinsey said, standing up, "my name is-"

"Senator Kinsey," Thor interrupted. "O'Neill suggested I send you to a distant planet for your actions here, but I am reasonably certain his statement was in jest."

Kinsey looked a bit unnerved at that, but smiled anyway. "I'm sure it was, Commander-" He raised his finger, about to continue, but Thor raised his finger as well, and didn't allow him to interrupt.

"_Supreme_ Commander..." Thor corrected, and Harry could tell that, even if Thor's face looked stoic as usual, the Asgard was greatly enjoying this. "Harry, you are our liaison between Stargate Command and the Asgard. What is your opinion on this issue?"

"Well, Senator Kinsey would surely bollocks it up if he was put in charge of the Stargate, and the SGC has already done so much. Not to mention the fact that I refuse to work with earth if anyone else was put in charge."

"That is what we believed as well," Thor said, nodding slowly again, before looking over the people gathered. "It is the opinion of the Asgard High Council that Stargate Command should be left in the very capable hands of General Hammond and his team. And while our continued friendship with earth is not contingent on that... it is preferred. I also need to add that any demands made of Harry to share his designs with those he does not wish to share them with will be regarded as an insult toward the Asgard people, and any threat made toward him..." Thor's eyes moved over to stare meaningfully at Kinsey. "...will be considered a threat toward the Asgard."

"You came all this way, just to tell us that?" the British ambassador asked in surprise.

"And to provide some upgrades to the Prometheus. A small token of thanks for SG-1's help in recent times," Thor said, to which Harry nodded slowly. Then, what Thor had said, registered with him, and he twitched.

"Hey!" Harry barked, pointing at Thor. "You're not touching my ship without permission!"

"I believe I already have, Harry."

"Work on your own ship!"

"I have no ship to work on."

"You have six!"

"Working on the Prometheus is much more satisfying than working on an O'Neill-class warship. I am not as familiar with the designs of the Prometheus. It is... refreshing."

"You're taking me with you," Harry said, glaring at him. "I want to look at every single little thing you do to my sweetheart!"

"Very well. I have said my piece anyway," Thor said, nodding, before looking over the ambassadors. "I hope I have been successful in convincing you. Good day, General Hammond."

"Always a pleasure, Thor. Please drop in any time," Hammond said, smiling at Thor, who moved a crystal on his command chair. He and Harry were enveloped in light, and then they disappeared from the room.

When the duo appeared inside the Prometheus, Thor rose from his command chair and started walking, giving Harry a small smile.

"I was lying earlier," he admitted, which made Harry raised an eyebrow.

"So you _did_ come just to tell them that?"

"No, I also came to deliver your new ship," Thor said, gesturing for the door leading into the hangar, where the X-302's were to be stored upon completed construction. Harry stepped into the hangar, and a bright grin appeared on his face at the sight in front of him.

The ship almost didn't fit in the hangar. It was one hundred and fifty meters long, and thirty meters wide and high. It was long and sleek, with two thirty meter wings on either side, which only served the purpose of carrying two sublight engines each.

"Wow," Harry uttered, giving an impressed whistle. "And everything is exactly how I designed it?"

"Yes," Thor said with a nod. "We had originally planned on upgrading the cloaking device for you, but there is no known technology capable of seeing through it as it is now, so we felt that was unnecessary."

"Quite," Harry said, turning to Thor and holding out his hand for the Asgard to shake. "Thanks for coming, Thor. All this damn political bollocks almost had me packing up and leaving."

"It was my pleasure, Harry," Thor said, giving a small smile as he shook Harry's hand. "Although you will always be welcome on Othala, it would be... uncomfortable... having you around for too long."

"No need to be hesitant to say it," Harry said, grinning as he turned to look at Thor. "You're still unnerved that I might snap one day and dissect every single Asgard on Othala."

"I did not want to voice it."

"Oh, I'm not offended," Harry said with a laugh. "In fact, hearing that I still intimidate people gives me this very pleasant feeling in my stomach."

–

**End of chapter twenty! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter... well, I don't know yet... It will probably not involve much regarding actual episodes, and may be more focused on 'team bonding.'**** Stay tuned!**


	21. Chapter 21

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-one! I'm sorry I've taken so long! I was hit with a pretty severe case of depression. Hell, it's still here, but it's not as strong anymore. I haven't been doing pretty much anything for a long time, so while I haven't updated for a long time, you can take solace in the fact that I haven't actually been doing anything else, either. This fic is, and will always be, at the very top of my list of priorities. Anyway, in this chapter, Harry tests out his new ship (Yes, it looks like the Normandy, for those who were wondering), meets a newly Descended friend, and then travels to the Ida galaxy to meet a very, very old creature.**

–

"Wow, this... is incredible..."

Harry gave a chuckle as he sat in his new ship, which he had named Sujan. In exchange for trading some information with her, Harry had promised Sujanha that he would name his first private ship after her. The ship itself was currently landed on an island in the Pacific. No one knew about the island, and Harry had claimed it as his own. The waters weren't very well-traveled, so he didn't need to worry about a ship suddenly running aground on his shores, considering the entire island was covered in a cloaking field. Just to be safe, however, he had set up a Muggle-repelling ward around the island, so that any Muggle ship that approached felt an urge to circle around the island.

Carter was on the ship with him. Due to him using the Sujan's Asgard beaming technology, he got her past the wards.

"I thought you might like getting an inside look at this ship," Harry said, sitting in the pilot seat of the ship, looking over at Carter, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat, staring at the control panel in front of her, which was composed of a beautiful mix of human, Asgard, and Ancient technology.

"And once again, you make me feel like a novice," Carter said, shaking her head in disbelief as she ran her hand across the control panel. "I mean, I don't even know what half these things do..."

"Want some pointers?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"_You_ are offering to give lessons?" Carter asked in surprise. "I thought you, in your own words, 'couldn't be bothered teaching babies how to breathe'?"

Harry chuckled at that.

"Yeah, well, you got to learn sometime, and my schedule is surprisingly empty at the moment, so... Interested?"

"It feels wrong, getting lessons from someone younger than me..." Carter muttered, crossing her arms.

"Only, what, eleven years and six months?"

"_Only_?"

"Hey, to an Asgard, that feels like no more than an hour."

"But we're not Asgard."

"Alright, fine," Harry said, crossing his arms. "I won't teach you how to understand all this advanced technology."

"Alright, alright, alright," Carter said, laughing. "Teach me."

"Very well," Harry said as he got out of the pilot seat and walked over to the co-pilot seat, pointing at the control panel. "We'll start off with the easiest. The Asgard crystals. Now, the thing about Asgard crystals is that each crystal had a particular order written in it. For example, let's make it simple. Say you have a control panel for a lightswitch. The circuitry and everything controlling the light is in the panel. However, in order to turn it on, you have to connect the on-crystal. It makes things much easier, because you can use the same crystal to control several other functions as well."

"But how do I know what the crystals or panels do?" Carter asked, raising an eyebrow.

Harry explained that as well. He explained everything as well as he could, and he was very surprised to find that Carter didn't need to be told twice about how everything worked. But, of course, that was just with Asgard tech. Although his explanation perfectly registered with Carter regarding Ancient tech, he knew that she was a long way from being able to tell what a crystal did just by looking at the pathways in them.

"I'm surprised, though," Carter said as they walked through deck three, which was the crew deck, and also housed the main battery. "This ship is a little big to be crewed by just one man, isn't it? And it's not like you're the type of guy who would get a crew."

"That's true," Harry said, nodding. "That's why I've made sure that an AI can connect to the ship, handling everything I'm not handling at the time."

Harry stopped and looked around, puffing on his cigarette thoughtfully.

"I would have designed a smaller ship, but other than my lab, I feel kind of claustrophobic in tight spaces. Hell, the ride to the planet where Anubis had set up the Ancient weapon in the X-302 was horrible. If I didn't have Frank there to keep my mind off things, I would have gone mental."

"It's a little late for that, isn't it?" Carter teased with a smirk, which made Harry snort.

"That's cute."

"I thought it was," Carter said cheekily. "Now, show me the drive core."

"I don't think I should. It'd be a fitting punishment for what you said," Harry said, smirking back at Carter, who gave him a playful glare. "But then, there is this saying about a woman scorned, so... it's this way."

–

"_Master,_" Frank said a few days later as he stood in Harry's lab in the SGC, "_this boredom is killing me. Figuratively, of course, but even dying figuratively is annoying for me. Can we not go out and incinerate some meatbags, master?_"

"You know, Frank, you need a hobby," Harry said with a snort, working on Frank's flight tech. "Something relaxing, peaceful... You should start crocheting."

Frank didn't answer. Instead, he just stared at Harry, who stared right back at him. Then, Harry gave a conceding nod.

"Alright, bad idea. But you need to get something to focus on, other than violence. Like it or not, we won't see much action for a while, with the way things are going here."

"_Master, should you not have accompanied the rest of SG-1 on the shakedown cruise of the Prometheus?_"

"No need. Everything was in perfect working order," Harry said, shrugging. "Besides, Sam knew where the emergency communicator to me is located, and the communicator to Thor. There were no problems."

There was a knock on Harry's office door, and General Hammond came inside, his brow furrowed.

"Dr. Potter, do you have a minute?"

"I have more than one," Harry said as he looked up from his work. "What can I do for you, General?"

"Doctor, I respect your privacy. After everything you have done for earth and its people, I think you deserve to do some things that others wouldn't be allowed to. However, having an unregistered spacecraft docked somewhere on this planet is something that, while I could care less, makes the high-ranking officers very nervous."

"Well, that's just fantastic, isn't it?" Harry asked with a grin, which made Hammond very confused, by the looks of it, so he decided to explain, "General, I greatly enjoy making leaders nervous. It keeps them on their toes, and shows that no matter how strong they think they are, there are always things out there that they simply aren't in control over."

"I see... Mind telling _me_ where it is?"

"The less who know, the better, right?" Harry reasoned.

"But you showed Major Carter."

"Sam doesn't know where it's docked. I beamed her onto it. It's protected by both cloaking and phasing technology," Harry explained, smiling at General Hammond. "Only I know where it is. Not even Frank or Aceso know. It is perfectly safe."

Slowly, Hammond nodded.

"I'll hold you to that, Doctor."

With another nod, this one of goodbye, Hammond left Harry's lab.

–

It had been a very boring few weeks for Harry, he had to admit. After all, he hadn't been brought along on any good missions. He had missed out on so much, especially a few days ago. The only help that had been requested from Harry was that he program a couple of sentries to obey O'Neill's orders, so that the Colonel could bring them to Abydos.

Right now, Harry was taking the Sujan on its official maiden voyage. SG-1 had headed to one of the planets that O'Neill had put into the SGC computer when he had the Ancient Repository downloaded into his brain, the last one on the list, to be exact, in order to find something called the City of the Lost, which was a terrible name in Harry's opinion, an Ancient city that had been under construction by the time the Ancients were struck by the plague that infected them.

"How is she holding up?" he spoke up suddenly. To the left of the pilot seat, a holographic projection of Aceso, about six times smaller than the real one, appeared on a holographic table.

"_All systems are working to your expectations. The sublight engines suffered a point-two percent loss in power once you activated the hyperdrive. It was a minor miscalculation regarding the power distribution, but I fixed it._"

"Miscalculation?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. He never miscalculated.

"_One of the Asgard who built the ship must have misread your plans, master,_" Aceso placated immediately. "_After all, I have read the plans for this ship, and I adjusted the power distribution accordingly. Therefore, it is only safe to say that the plans were misread._"

"Good to hear. I was afraid I might be losing my edge," Harry said, lighting a cigarette.

The eyes of hologram-Aceso flashed once, and then she said, "_Master, we have an incoming transmission on a private channel, code Blond._"

"Oh, that's Sam," Harry said with a smile. "Put her through." A beep sounded, and Harry said, "Sam?"

"_Harry, is that you?_"

"No, I am Desmond. I stole this ship from Harry for giggles."

"_Very funny. Listen, how long until you get here?_"

"Oh, about three minutes. Why?"

"_We've found someone here on the planet... You're not gonna believe it if you don't see him for yourself,_" Carter said, which made Harry narrow his eyes.

"Is it Daniel?"

"_How... How did you know?_"

"Lucky guess. I mean, we don't really know anyone else who's been gone, right?" Harry said, puffing on his cigarette. "So, Daniel's there, huh? In what form?"

"_He's somehow Descended, it seems, and he doesn't remember anything. The people here call him Arrom._"

"Arrom?" Harry asked, blinking. "That's Hebrew, 'Naked.'"

"_Yeah... Apparently, that's how they found him._"

Harry snorted at that.

"Well, I'll be right there, see what's going on."

With that, Harry cut the transmission.

So, four minutes later found the Sujan dropping its cloak over the ruins of a city, where the scanners were reading plenty of life signs, along with picking up the signal from Carter's communicator.

"Alright, Aceso, keep the ship up here, and beam me down there. Stay locked on my signal, in case something goes wrong."

"_Understood, master. Do you believe something will go wrong?_"

"No, but it never hurts to be safe," Harry said, getting out of the chair. "Alright, beam me down."

Harry was enveloped in a bright light, and when it cleared, he was standing among the ruins of the city, surrounded by tents and people who were obviously nomads. They didn't look like they lived in the city, but just stayed there for a while. In front of him stood a visibly surprised Carter, who blinked at him.

"I thought you'd land and get here on foot," she commented, which made Harry chuckle.

"What's the point of having a Asgard transporter if you're not gonna use it?" he asked, then looked around. "So, where's Daniel?"

"Colonel O'Neill is with him right now. You can go see him if you want," Carter said, turning around and pointing at a tent a couple of yards away. "He's in there."

"Thanks," Harry said, patting her on the shoulder, before walking off toward the tent. When he got there, O'Neill was just exiting, immediately taking notice of the ship hovering in the sky.

"Nice, that," he commented, pointing upward.

"Yeah, she's a beauty. So, he remembers nothing?"

"Not a damn thing," O'Neill said with a shake of his head. "Nothing before waking up somewhere near here a couple of months ago."

"Well, let the doctor take a look," Harry said, grinning as he passed O'Neill and entered the tent, where he found Daniel sitting, in the process of lighting a few candles. "Hey, Daniel!"

Daniel blinked and turned to look at him, his eyes widening at the sight of the mad scientist.

"Don't remember me?" Harry asked, gesturing for his face. "This isn't exactly a face that's easy to forget."

"Sorry, I'm drawing a blank," Daniel said, turning back to the candles. Harry hummed as he walked over, putting a cigarette in his mouth and leaning over a candle to light it, before sitting down in front of Daniel.

"Well, I'm Dr. Harry Potter, a good friend of yours, though you would never have admitted it," Harry introduced himself, puffing on the cigarette. "I was also your field-physician."

Daniel tilted his head to the side, his brow furrowing.

"And that means...?"

"It means that while your regular physician is Janet Fraiser, I take over for her whenever she is unavailable, most often in the field," Harry explained. "So, it's my responsibility to make sure you are physically fine at the moment, so just relax and let me examine you."

"Wha-"

Daniel couldn't as his question, as just then Harry reached over and grabbed the sides of Daniel's head, using his thumbs to keep his eyes open as he stared into them.

"A bit distant," Harry muttered, staring into them. "Yeah, it sure does look like you have a case of layered amnesia."

"Layered?" Daniel asked, looking a bit disgruntled at the rough treatment as Harry let go of him, leaning back.

"That's what I've come to call it. It's a relatively light case of amnesia. Think of a painting, a painting depicting everything you have in your memory," Harry said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "Now imagine that someone has taken a blank, white screen and covered the painting. That's the layered amnesia I'm talking about. Your memories are still there in pristine condition, it's just hidden by a screen, so you just have to either figure out a way to tear down the whole screen at once, or you can just poke little holes in the screen one at a time, picking up snippet after snippet of information."

"Is that supposed to assure me, or something?" Daniel asked, which made Harry chuckle.

"Whether you wish to feel assured that you'll get your memory back or not is entirely up to you. I'm just telling you how it is."

They were quiet for a while, and then Harry smiled at Daniel.

"You don't want to leave this place, do you?" he asked, gesturing for the tent. "You're afraid you won't like who you were."

"How did you know?" Daniel asked in surprise, to which Harry shrugged.

"Lucky guess."

"Yeah, I mean... What if I don't want to be who I was? What if I don't have it in me to make up for something I've done wrong?"

"You Ascended, Daniel, because you believed you were worthy of it," Harry explained. "You have nothing to make up for, in my opinion. You are a great man. Not as great as me, naturally, but great."

Harry leaned back and puffed slowly on his cigarette, a smirk appearing on his face.

"I counted you, and still do, as a friend, which really is saying a lot. I don't have a lot of friends, mostly because I'm a bit impossible to get along with, and I find most people to be too stupid to befriend. You care about people, a valuable trait, and you have an incredible passion for what you do, which I can really respect."

The mad scientist got to his feet and patted Daniel on the shoulder.

"I know that you know that you don't belong here," he said simply, before leaving the tent, finding Carter waiting outside. He patted her on the shoulder as well. "Tag."

"Hey, Harry!" came O'Neill's voice as the Colonel jogged up to him. "I was thinking, that ship's gotta have some kind of scanner, right?" he asked, pointing up at the hovering Sujan.

"Yeah," Harry said, pushing back his sleeve and opening his control device. "Anything in particular you want me to scan for?"

"Yeah, big honking weapons, big honking energy sources, pretty much anything that's big and honking... and filled with some kind of energy."

Harry slowly nodded at that, though he honestly hadn't believed he'd ever meet anyone who spoke in a simpler manner than Ronald Weasley...

"I think I know what you want me to scan for..." he muttered, then pushed a button on the control device. "Aceso, scan the surface of the planet for energy signatures, no matter how faint."

"Understood, master."

"Yes, that," O'Neill said with a nod, which made Harry sigh.

"You know what the worst part about this whole thing is?" the scientist asked O'Neill, who raised a curious eyebrow. Harry pointed accusingly at him. "You are perfectly capable of speaking in a smarter manner than you do, because you're smarter than you make yourself out to be, and it ticks me off something fierce!"

O'Neill opened his mouth to speak, but just then Aceso said, "Master, I have finished my scan of the surface. No energy signatures were detected."

"Much simpler than a UAV, isn't it?" Harry said with a smile to O'Neill, before pushing a button on his control device again. "Alright, Aceso, beam me up in fifteen seconds."

"Affirmative, master."

"I have to go," Harry informed O'Neill. "Thor wants me to be there when they make a couple of calibrations to the Asgard plasma cannons. I'll be back soon to check on Daniel, though."

Without waiting for a go-ahead from O'Neill, Harry allowed himself to be beamed up.

–

Carter stood in the briefing room of the SGC, making a presentation to the occupants, which consisted of O'Neill, Daniel, Hammond, Jonas, along with a group of various Tok'ra members and SGC personnel.

"As you know, Harry made the F-302's hyperspace generator work flawlessly. So, if our calculations are correct, we believe that a short, controlled burst would send the 302 into subspace just long enough to bypass the mothership's shields."

"And if your calculations are incorrect?" O'Neill wanted to know, always one to want to hear the worst-case scenarios in these situations.

"The 302 would bypass the mothership altogether, or worse, re-emerge inside it. Which is why I would've liked to have Harry here to confirm this..."

"Speak of the Devil, and He shall appear," a new voice said as Harry entered the briefing room, holding an open file in his hand. "I just got back, and I took a look at your calculations. A slight miscalculation, but I can fix it," he muttered, looking at the file. "A point-oh-four second burst would put the 302 too close to the ship to pull up. I suggest a point-oh-three second burst."

"Glad you could finally join us, Doctor," Hammond said in a tone of obvious disapproval.

"Hey, if you don't like it, I could just, you know, avoid upgrading the Prometheus weaponry and the ion cannons," Harry said with a shrug, setting the file down on the table. "So, what are we going to be doing that requires the Nym to get past a set of shields?"

"Should I start over?" Carter asked the rest of the room.

"No!" O'Neill said quickly. "God, no!" He turned to Harry. "Anubis' mothership has a great big space gun-"

"Big and honking?" Harry asked with a smirk.

"The biggest and honkiest," O'Neill confirmed. "Anyway, it's got a big honking space gun, and we need to take it out. That's why we need to get past the shields." Now, the Colonel turned to Carter. "Continue."

Carter cleared her throat. "Now, uh, according to intelligence provided by the Tok'ra, the power core of Anubis' new weapon must be cooled by a ventilation shaft on the exterior of the ship. If that can be targeted and destroyed just as the weapon is powering up, the crystals will overheat and be destroyed."

"Where is the shaft, exactly?" O'Neill asked, which got Carter to adopt a somewhat annoyed look.

"As Colonel O'Neill is well-aware, we don't know exactly where the shaft is."

"Our operative in Anubis' ranks has been unable to get aboard the new ship, and has only been able to glean a very limited working knowledge of it. Anubis protects his computer systems with elaborate ciphers coded in the oldest known Ancient dialect. We have been unable to translate them," a female Tok'ra said.

"Question," Harry said, lighting a cigarette and puffing on it slowly. "Why don't we just bring the full might of the Prometheus down on the ship? Saves us the trouble."

"As simple as that would be, the Prometheus has not yet been cleared for active duty," Hammond said. "There are apparently still many tests to run on it."

"Well, that's annoying..."

"Anyway, Jonas Quinn and Daniel Jackson will sneak onto Anubis' ship and access the computer," Carter continued her briefing.

"We have devised an injectable radioactive isotope that will allow them to move freely on Anubis' ship, undetected by its sensors, for eight hours."

"Do we know what kind of sensors the ship's running?" Harry asked curiously.

"As we said, we haven't gotten as much information as we would have liked, but we are assuming they are normal Goa'uld sensors."

"Well, it's a bit foolish to use something that hasn't been tested on an operation this important, don't you think?" Harry said, puffing on his cigarette.

"Did you have something else in mind, Doctor?" Hammond asked, to which Harry nodded.

"Yeah, my cloaking device can hide one from even a sensor on the level of an Asgard," Harry said. "Not to mention that it hides one from view as well. How long would it take before this operation is ready to go?"

"Well, it would take about a week to relocate the inhabitants of the ruins..." Jonas reasoned.

"Then that's enough time for me to set these two up with their own cloaking devices. Could probably create linked visors that will allow them to see each other, too."

"Can you do that in a single week?" Carter asked, to which Harry grinned.

"Imagine what I could do in two. Also, I'm volunteering the Sujan for the run."

"Your ship is a bit too big for the operation," Carter said, shaking her head. "It wouldn't be able to veer off-course after making the jump past the shields."

"But I was thinking..." Harry started, but then stopped and hummed. "No, maybe he..."

"What?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, I was thinking that I could hook up my phasing technology to the Sujan. It would have to replace the hyperdrive, so I'd have to do it once I got to the planet, but I just realized that Anubis' shields might protect against that as well. Forget I said anything."

"Right," Carter said slowly, before getting back to the briefing. "Anyway, the week will give us more than enough time to build a makeshift runway and get the 302 through the Gate and reassembled."

"Once everything is established, the Tok'ra will plant our fake tablet and, with any luck, we'll lure Anubis to the planet," Jonas continued where Carter left off.

"Tablet?" Harry asked.

"Tell you later," Jonas promised.

"Let's move," Hammond said, officially ending the briefing as the lights in the room came back on, and people started leaving, with Harry, O'Neill, Daniel, Carter, and Jonas remaining.

"Well, I should get straight to work making those cloaking devices for you guys," Harry said, patting Daniel on the shoulder. "Damn good to have you back, mate."

–

The day before the operation was to take place, Daniel and Jonas entered Harry's lab, where Harry sat working out some kinks in Frank's pretty much finished flight tech. The bloodthirsty AI stood in the corner, his eyes flashing when he turned toward the new arrivals.

"_It seems your statement was not in jest, master,_" the AI commented with a small hum. "_Puzzling. In my experience, meatbags do not have the annoying tendency to return from death._"

"Well, I apparently wasn't dead, technically..." Daniel said slowly, staring at Frank. "Just Ascended."

"You don't seem surprised," Harry said, jutting his thumb in Frank's direction.

"No, I... I remember him," Daniel said. "I definitely remember him."

"You needed us for something?" Jonas asked, getting to business.

"Oh, yes," Harry said as he rose from his chair, pulling out a drawer in his desk and picking up two devices that looked an awful lot like his own control device. "I finished your cloaking devices. I labeled the buttons, so you should be able to figure them out without a manual, and even if you couldn't, instructions are on the screen," he said, handing them over. "They render you completely invisible, and permits brief phasing through solid objects."

"How brief?" Jonas asked.

"Well, with that small an energy source, if you have the anti-sensor and anti-visual cloaking activated at the same time, you'll be able to phase for a total of four seconds before the power is completely drained, and the whole thing dies, rendering you completely visible."

"Hm, question," Daniel said, having opened the cloaking device and looked over the buttons on it. "Why does this button say 'Boom,' and this say, 'Other boom'?"

"Oh, the boom is for the blue keron detonator attached to the side, there," Harry said, pointing at the blue keron block on the side of the device. "You'll notice on the underside that there are six extra keron blocks inserted in it. They can be used to either be put together to create a bomb, where you just attach the blue one and press 'Boom' to detonate, or they can be used to replace the spent block if you accidentally drain the power."

"And the other boom?" Jonas asked cautiously.

"Oh, well, there's another detonator built into the cloaking device," Harry explained with a grin. "So, if you're captured, I advice you to press it to activate the self-destruct so that the enemy won't be able to study it."

"How long do we have?"

"Hm?"

"The timer on the self-destruct," Jonas clarified. "How long do we have?"

"Oh, it blows the second you press the button. That prevents the enemy from being able to disarm it."

"But wouldn't that blow up our arms as well?" Daniel asked, which made Harry scoff.

"Sometimes, sacrifices are necessary," the scientist reasoned with a shrug.

Before the two could comment on that, however, Harry took out two pairs of what looked like extremely high-tech sunglasses, their shades being a matte black that looked like they were impossible to view anything through.

"Here are your visors. Just push the red button on the side there to link them with your cloaking devices. The buttons on your device is able to shift between visions. Daniel, this one is yours. It's adjusted to your vision."

Daniel put on the sunglasses and pushed the button, then went, "Oh, wow... Infrared..."

"Yeah, those visors have infrared, short-range X-ray, cloak-sight, and, of course, normal vision."

"Cloak-sight?" Daniel asked, looking Harry over. "And wow... What is that thing on your right side?"

"Anti-venom sack," Harry explained simply. "And the cloak-sight is what I call the third vision. It doesn't have an official name. It's just normal vision, but it's calibrated to the frequency of each other's cloaking, so it should outline each of you to the other."

"You did this in six days?" Jonas asked in surprise.

"Not quite. I've had the designs for them filed for a while. I just haven't found the time to create them."

"Well, thanks," Daniel said, nodding. "I'm sure these will be very useful. What will you be doing?"

"Thor contacted me a couple of hours ago," Harry said, scratching his head. "Apparently, the Asgard have found a lifesign reading on a planet in the Ida galaxy that has so far been considered uninhabited. They can't recognize what type of life it is, so they want my help in identifying it."

"Do they really need your help for something like that?" Jonas asked in confusion. "I mean, from my understanding, they managed fine before you came along."

"They can do it themselves, but because of their gratitude toward me, they feel compelled to include me in things like this."

Harry held out his hand for Daniel to shake.

"I wish you luck," he said as Daniel shook his hand, and then he shook Jonas' hand. "Both of you. And please, try to return the equipment in one piece. If I have time, I might make an appearance with the Sujan to help with the Anubis situation."

–

So, the next day, Harry dropped out of hyperspace near the planet in question, finding Thor's O'Neill-class ship in orbit around it. He had a bright smile on his face, and for good reason.

"_Congratulations, master,_" came Aceso's voice from the ship. "_The superdrive is a success._"

"So I noticed," Harry said, still smiling. "Alright, open up communications with Thor."

"_Yes, master._"

A faint beep sounded, and a holographic screen appeared before him, showing Thor, who had a faint smile on his face.

"_Harry, how good to see you. Thank you for coming._"

"My pleasure. I'm always thrilled at the prospect of studying new lifeforms."

"_Would you be opposed to be beamed aboard?_"

"Not at all. I'd like to hear about this in person," Harry said as he lowered his shields, and was immediately enveloped in the familiar white light of Asgard beaming, reappearing on the bridge of Thor's ship.

"So, what is this new lifeform?"

"It is unlike anything we have ever seen," Thor said, rising from his command chair and walking up to stand next to him, gazing out the window at the planet. "It is most certainly an aquatic creature. The planet is ninety-three percent covered in water, and the sensors detect it right in the middle of the deepest part of the ocean."

"Why haven't you discovered it until now?"

"Our sensors had not been calibrated to detect it. It is mostly hidden, and it is only thanks to you that we managed to calibrate our sensors to find it."

"Oh?" Harry uttered, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "How so?"

"Before we met you, we were not quite as advanced in the study of biological energy as we are now, Harry," Thor explained. "Long ago, the Asgard found an artifact on a planet near Othala. We thought nothing of it, and believed it to only belong to some long-lost religion. We brought it to Orilla for storage, and later moved it to Othala. Only now did we notice that the artifact was giving off a biological energy signature, which greatly surprised us. The artifact was transmitting a signal to this planet, which led us to calibrate our scanners."

Thor led Harry over to a table nearby and made a gesture over it with his hand. A holographic 3D image appeared over the table, revolving slowly, showing some kind of creature. It bore a remarkable resemblance to a cuttlefish. With several tentacle-like appendages extending below the body and from the sides. The body itself appeared to be covered by some kind of bony, heavily ridged plates.

"The creature is massive in scope," Thor said, observing the creature. "We estimate the body itself to be approximately five hundred and twenty-three meters in length. We have attempted to make contact with it through the artifact we found, as you say, 'hitching a ride' on the signal with our own radio signals."

"No response?"

"No. We are unaware if this is due to the creature being unable to respond, or if it simply chooses not to."

"Shame, that. If I had the equipment suited for it, I would have liked to go down there and investigate. How deep is it?"

"Our estimation says that the creature dwells at a depth of three thousand two hundred and sixty-seven meters," Thor said, which made Harry hum.

"No way to get down there?"

"We do, actually," Thor said. "A small vessel can reach those depths using a new type of shielding we have developed for the sole reasons of deep diving. Oxygen will be limited, but the shield will prevent any mass from passing through it, even water. If we install this on the Sujan, you will be able to venture down to that depth and investigate. We would have done so ourselves, but I have been unable to locate any volunteers."

"For the sake of discovery, I'll do it."

"That is what I was hoping you would say."

And so found Harry three hours later diving through the atmosphere in the Sujan, straight down toward the ocean. The new Asgard shield was installed and had temporarily replaced his usual shielding, and as he hit the water at great speeds, he was greatly surprised when the ship didn't even shake from the impact, instead simply shooting straight through the water.

"Alright, Thor," Harry said, opening up communications with Thor's ship, "I'm nearing the proper depth. Here's hoping the creature is up for a chat."

"_Good luck, Harry. We stand ready to beam your ship out of there in case of trouble._"

"Yeah, well, just remember that we don't know how the creature communicates, so don't beam me out until I push the button," Harry said, keeping his hand on a device of his own design, a sort of distress beacon calibrated to send a signal to all nearby Asgard vessels.

"_Understood, Harry._"

The Sujan reached the correct depth at the last known location of the creature and halted its descent, leveling out as Harry stared out the window.

"_Master, have you any idea how to call the creature?_" Aceso asked, her usual monotone voice holding a hint of curiosity.

"I was thinking we wait, and maybe it'll come to us to investigate."

Just as Harry said it, bubbles started rising in front of the ship, and Harry's jaw almost dropped at the sight of the creature that followed the bubbles.

It was one thing to see a framework hologram of it, but it was a whole other thing to see it in person...

The creature's plating was very dark, and pretty spooky, with all the aquatic plants and such growing on it. It also had two sets of three eyes embedded symmetrically on the lower dorsal surface of the body, all of which were glowing blue, and quite clearly staring straight at the Sujan.

Harry felt a tingle in his head, but before he could slam down his Occlumency shields, the creature had already made entry, and it suddenly felt like the time when he had installed the bolt in his head, like someone had stabbed a scalpel into his brain. He gave a yell of surprise and gritted his teeth, doing his damnedest to shield his mind from the foreign presence.

"**You resist...**" a deep, guttural voice echoed in his mind as he screwed his eyes shut in concentration. "**Your resistance is impressive, but ultimately futile. I will have access to your mind. It will be mine. Struggling will only cause unnecessary pain.**"

Harry kept his eyes screwed shut and his jaw clenched as he tried to focus. Then, in an instant, the pain disappeared, and Harry opened his eyes to find himself standing in blackness. There was nothing around him, below him, or above him, except empty blackness.

"**Your mind is now mine,**" the dark voice said from behind him. "**Breathe slow.**"

Harry spun around, and found himself staring at...

"Nym?"

Nymphadora Tonks, standing in front of him, slowly shook her head.

"**Your memories give voice to our words,**" she said, and it was incredibly strange to hear the dark voice coming out of her mouth. "**Your nature will be revealed to us. Accept this.**"

"If you now have access to my mind," Harry said, narrowing his eyes, "you should know I don't accept servitude."

"**Indeed. Yours is a strong one. I am unable to extend my influence far enough to control your actions. But I can keep you here. I can make you a prisoner in your own mind. You will die down here in the deep if you resist.**"

"Who are you?"

"**My name and race are irrelevant to you. Your primitive, underdeveloped mind would be unable to cope with the understanding that such a truth might bring.**"

"Try me," Harry said, narrowing his eyes. He felt very insulted that the creature would consider his mind primitive and underdeveloped, like he was some kind of monkey.

"**My race is older than time itself,**" the creature said, walking past Harry and circling around him. When it came into view again, it had taken the shape of Adrian. "**We were the first, the apex race. Our kind was once the apex of life in the galaxy. The lesser species were in our thrall, serving our needs. We grew more powerful, and they were cared for. But evolution, as it always has, set in.**"

The creature stopped its slow pacing in front of Harry and adopted a thoughtful look.

"**Our servants grew more intelligent. They evolved, they became stronger. They no longer needed us.**"

"That must have stung," Harry said with a smirk.

"**On the contrary, it filled us with pride. You cannot conceive of a galaxy that bends to your will. Every creature, every nation, every planet we discovered became our tools. We were proud to see them rise from servitude to stand on their own. The single drawback was that they stopped paying tribute to us.**"

"So, how did you go from 'undisputed rulers' to living at the bottom of the ocean of a planet with no people living on it?" Harry wanted to know.

"**We had already existed for millions of years. We now understood that our presence was no longer needed,**" the creature said, holding its hands behind its back as it stared up into the blackness. "**We had seen what was going to happen, as the same thing happened in other universes, so we withdrew, and became observers.**"

"What happened in other universes?" Harry asked, blinking. "Your consciousness can reach through realities?"

"**Yes. In other realities, we tried to protect the lesser species. We made mistakes. We were almost wiped out,**" the creature said, humming softly, which sounded more like a growl. "**We did not take this path. We withdrew.**"

"So, why are you trying to take control of my mind?"

"**Our solitude is voluntary. Our silence as well. We thrive in being unknown. You know of us now, as do the Asgard. They need to be destroyed in order to preserve our secret.**"

Harry chuckled softly. The chuckle slowly built into loud laughter. It wasn't his usual mad cackling, but rather laughter of amusement.

"And you think I'll allow that?" he asked, calming down. "I know why you're telling me this. I know why you're trying to distract me."

"**Do you?**" the creature asked, turning to look at him.

"You can't reach me," Harry stated, smirking widely at the creature. "You have control of most of my mind at the moment, but you cannot control all of me. You are trying to distract me so I will lower my guard."

The creature gave that humming growl again, giving Harry a long stare of mild curiosity.

"**Yours is a fascinating mind. From this distance, I can brush that of the Asgard orbiting the planet. I cannot take control, but I can read them. Your mind is vastly superior to theirs. You have only unlocked a small part of your potential, and yet you are superior to all those you have encountered thus far.**"

"You should release control of me right now, and go back to quietly observing," Harry said simply. "If you have access to my mind, you should know that whenever I encounter a problem, I overcome it. It's only a matter of time before I turn the tables on you."

"**You cannot.**"

"Can't I?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. "Surely, you already feel that tickle in the back of your mind? I'm already attacking you."

The creature's eyes narrowed in concentration.

"**Indeed. As stated earlier, yours is a fascinating mind. I have never encountered anyone with as resistant a mind as yours. Not even your ancestors were as resistant.**"

"The Ancients?"

"**Yes.**"

The creature was quiet for a moment, appearing thoughtful for a moment.

"**Perhaps you are the one...**"

"The one?"

"**I am, as you say, thinking out loud,**" the creature said slowly. "**Very well.**"

The creature turned its back on Harry and looked up into the blackness again.

"**If you can assure me that these Asgard will not reveal my existence to anyone, I will let you go.**"

"That's it?" Harry asked, his eyebrows rising. "Hell, now I almost want to stay, just so that I can probe your mind for whatever idea you just had."

The creature didn't answer. It just faded away, and the blackness blinked out of existence. Harry was once more sitting in the pilot seat of the Sujan, and he blinked rapidly, his eyes dry. He had apparently kept them open that whole time. Well, his left eye was the only one that was bothering him, at least.

He looked to the creature outside, to see it slowly sinking out of view again.

"**Farewell...**"

"Well..." Harry muttered, exhaling slowly. "That was interesting..."

"_Harry,_" came Thor's voice as his face appeared in front of him, the Sujan heading upward toward the surface, "_are you alright? Did you encounter the creature?_"

"I did. It doesn't want to be disturbed, and it would be a bother to disturb it. Let's just leave it alone... Well, for now, anyway."

"_Understood._"

–

**End of chapter twenty-one! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! For those of you who figured it out on your own and were wondering, yes, that was a Leviathan, like the one in Mass Effect. This is because I have actually been planning on ending this little Madness trilogy with a Mass Effect crossover. Don't know if I've already mentioned that or not. Ah well, I have now, at least! In the next chapter, we pick up in the middle of the assault on Anubis' ship!**** Stay tuned!**


	22. Chapter 22

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-two! I hope this means that I'm getting my spark back, but don't hold your breaths for another one chapter a day streak. That way, if it becomes another streak, you'll be pleasantly surprised, and if it doesn't, you won't be disappointed. Anyway, in this chapter, Frank gets to play some, and Harry encounters the Asgard Loki!**

–

The door to one of the many control rooms on Anubis' ship slid open. The two Jaffa inside turned to look who entered, but blinked when no one did. The Jaffa sitting at the console, working on the holographic screen, jerked his head toward the door, and the other Jaffa nodded, raising his staff weapon and slowly approaching it.

A zat blast came out of nowhere and hit the approaching Jaffa, and another one hit the Jaffa sitting at the console, knocking them both out.

The door closed, and two figures shimmered into existence, Daniel Jackson and Jonas Quinn. Jonas closed the door, while Daniel sat down at the console and got to work on it, examining files on the holographic screen.

"Well, gotta give credit to Harry," Daniel said, glancing down at the cloaking device attached to his forearm. "He didn't exactly slack off when he made these."

"Guess you don't remember everything about Harry yet," Jonas said with a small grin. "He never slacks off when it comes to his work."

"_Daniel, Jonas, we are under attack,_" came Carter's voice over the communicator given to them by the Tok'ra. "_We need that intel._"

Daniel took the communicator out of his tactical vest and brought it to his mouth.

"We're close."

"_We can't hold these guys off for long._"

"Well, I'll make sure no one can come check up on these guys," Jonas said, jogging over to the door and removing the door panel, revealing the crystals underneath. He removed the master control crystal and nodded to himself. "Alright, that should hold anyone trying to get in off for a while."

"That's it, I'm in. Uh... this may take more than a little while..." Daniel muttered, looking at the large amounts of information on the screen.

"Well, can't you do some kind of a... keyword search?"

"Yeah? For what, Achilles?"

"Well, that's good," Jonas said with a small smile on his face as he approached Daniel. "I'm glad to see that your memory's finally coming back. Not to mention your razor-sharp wit, but why don't we try something like, uh... power-core venting?"

Daniel types it into the console, and his eyebrows shot up.

"That's it. That's it," he said as he picked up the communicator again. "Jack, Sam, we got it. Transmitting data."

"Alright, let's not stick around to see what happens," Jonas said, to which Daniel nodded, rising from the chair. The two made their way to the door, and Jonas put the control crystal back into the door panel, then opened the door as they made to activate their cloaking devices.

Unfortunately, there was a squad of Jaffa right outside. Only Daniel was quick enough to activate his cloak before the zat shots started flying, one of them hitting Jonas, who collapsed.

Daniel fled back into the room, and with some difficulty managed to climb up into a vent, making his escape.

–

When Jonas woke up, he found himself strapped to a table by a yoke that went across his neck and wrists. The force-field sealing the cell he was in shut was turned off, and Anubis entered, followed by a Jaffa.

"You will suffer greatly," Anubis assured him.

"Yeah, I figured as much. Although, I am consoled by the fact that we succeeded in destroying the power source for your new weapon," Jonas said, sounding a lot calmer than he felt.

"You are in no position to gloat."

"We just wiped out your single advantage you had over the Goa'uld. I would say that's as good a reason as any."

"Enough!" Anubis exclaimed, then gestured for the Jaffa behind him, who was holding his cloaking device. "This is a fascinating creation. Tell me, how do you activate it."

"Why should I tell you?" Jonas asked, scoffing. "You didn't really expect me to, did you?"

"Believe me, I could easily tear the information out of your head, but time is of the essence, and you should spare yourself the pain."

Jonas narrowed his eyes. He made sure to put on an expression as though he was conflicted, but in reality he was very pleased. Hopefully, he would be able to work this to his advantage.

"Odder bohom..." he muttered, sounding as regretful as he possibly could. He gestured for the device as best he could with his hand. "The button that says 'Odder bohom' is the one you press to activate its phasing ability. 'Bohom' is for the cloak."

"Try it," Anubis ordered the Jaffa, who put the cloaking device on his forearm and opened it, pressing what was undoubtedly the 'Other boom' button, because the next second, an explosion rocked the room, powerful enough to blow the Jaffa back into the wall, and Anubis off his feet.

When the smoke from the explosion cleared, the Jaffa could be seen missing his arm from his mid-bicep, and his front and face were completely torn up by shrapnel.

"Wow," Jonas commented as Anubis got to his feet. "That must be annoying..."

"Very well..." Anubis said, reaching into his sleeve. "If you will not cooperate, I will tear the information from your mind..."

Out of his sleeve, he pulled a small, round device, which sprouted spikes all over. Jonas was sure that, if the Goa'uld could, he would be smirking at his prisoner.

Well, Jonas supposed that he now knew what lab rats must have felt like when Harry started out as a scientist...

–

The Sujan dropped out of hyperspace in orbit of the planet where the assault against Anubis' ship was to take place, and Harry was surprised to see nothing there. No debris, no life signs, nothing.

"Aceso, open up lines of communication with Sam, will you?" Harry asked, and the holographic Aceso next to him gave a nod.

"_Yes, master._"

The faint beeping was heard, and Harry spoke, "Sam, you there?"

"_Harry?_" came Carter's voice. "_Where are you?_"

"I'm orbiting the planet where Anubis' ship was supposed to be. Don't see anything, though. I can't have missed it. There's no debris."

"_You did miss it. Anubis' weapon was neutralized, but Yu never showed up, and Anubis went into hyperspace._"

"Too bad. I would have wanted to see what would happen with Anubis if his containment unit was destroyed..." Harry muttered, sighing.

"_That's not the worst part,_" Carter said softly. "_Harry... Daniel and Jonas were still on the ship when it entered hyperspace._"

"Well... That kind of sucks..." Harry said, scratching his head. "Alright, I'll scour a bit, put the long-range scanners to work trying to find the ship."

"_Appreciate it. Let us know if you find anything._"

"Will do."

Harry made to turn off communications, but suddenly, Carter said, "_Wait!_"

"Hm?"

"_Harry, we just received a call from Ambassador Dreylock of the Kelownan High Council,_" Carter said. "_She claims that they're under attack from Anubis._"

"Kelowna, that's a state on Jonas' homeworld, right?" Harry asked, getting an affirmative response from Carter. "Alright, I've got it on the ship's computer. I'll head there immediately, try to raise communications with Daniel."

"_Good luck._"

"Yeah."

With that, Harry turned off communications, then plotted a course for Jonas' homeworld, before jumping into hyperspace.

"_Master,_" came Frank's voice from behind him, and he turned around to see the AI standing there, his head tilted slightly to the side. "_You know that I am usually the first to approve of an epic battle, master, but what could this ship possibly do against the not-quite-meatbag Anubis' ship? As advanced as the weaponry is, we have too few weapons to break through the shields._"

"That's very true, Frank," Harry said as Frank moved over to sit down in the co-pilot's seat. "However, chances are that they will be successful in rounding up some Goa'uld assistance this time, at which point we would only assist."

"_I see. They were not successful this time, master?_"

"Apparently, Yu never showed up, and that's why Anubis is currently hovering menacingly above Kelowna."

"_Hm... Master, is it not likely that this will be one of those situations where you are forced to assist your team? They are but frail meatbags, master, and I doubt that they could handle themselves very well in a heavy firefight._"

"Without a doubt, either you or I are going to have to go down there to help them," Harry agreed with a nod. "What's wrong, Frank, I thought you'd look forward to that."

"_Oh, I do, master. Believe me, I do. It is only... Well, master, you have so far blown up four Goa'uld motherships, and I have yet to explode a single one. My body count is already higher than yours, so killing more Jaffa would only be a pleasant past-time now._"

Harry blinked at that, then slowly turned his head to look at Frank.

"You really need to find something else to do, Frank... I worry about you."

"_Why, master? Are you worried that the meatbags of the SGC will start to hate me?_"

"Not at all. Most already do. I'm more worried that your bloodthirst will become so powerful that you'll be able to ignore your prime directives."

"_Oh, come now, master, do you truly think so little of me?_" Frank asked, sounding disappointed. "_Even if my prime directives were gone, I would still obey your orders. Even if my prime directives were gone this very moment, and you ordered me to lay down my arms and go snuggle furry animals, I would do so, because you are my creator, my father, my master._"

Harry's eyes widened at the sincerity with which Frank spoke those words. Despite not having a face to show expressions, Harry could tell that Frank looked thoughtful.

"_Please don't ask me to lay down my arms and go snuggle furry animals, master..._"

"Never, Frank."

–

In the command bunker at the outskirts of the capitol of Kelowna, O'Neill stood, waiting for news from his teams. Frankly, he hated this, the waiting. When he knew action was just around the corner, he always wanted to just get it over with as quickly as possible.

He _really_ hated waiting...

But what he really, _really_ hated, even more than waiting, was the fact that he actually wished that Harry and Frank were there. After all, there were over a thousand Jaffa in the capitol, if Commander Hale was to be believed, and Frank would probably have been ecstatic about killing them all.

Hell, he probably would have thrown away that awesome Gatling Cannon of his and used his arm blades for sport...

"_The perimeter is clear, sir,_" came the voice of Sergeant Miller over the radio. "_We've go a visual on Major Robins' position across the square._"

"Okay, Sergeant, sit tight," O'Neill said into the radio. "O'Neill out."

O'Neill was greatly surprised when he saw Carter and Teal'c rounding a corner into the large room with the other Kelownans they had brought with them, and following them was Daniel and Jonas. His eyebrows rose as he walked around the large table in front of him to meet them.

"Colonel," Carter greeted.

"Hey! Where'd you find them?" O'Neill asked, nodding toward Daniel and Jonas.

"They, er, dropped into the warehouse."

"Nice. The crystal?"

"Right here," Carter said, taking an orange crystal out of the pocket of her tactical vest.

She made to hand it over to O'Neill, but just then Commander Hale was heard saying, "I'll take that."

Everyone turned to see the Commander approaching, a grim look on his face.

"I think it would be better if we held on to it," Carter said.

"I'm afraid I must insist," Hale said, and the sound of footsteps was heard. Many footsteps...

A troop of Jaffa entered the room, both in front of them and behind them, making O'Neill blink.

"What is this?"

"I have made a separate arrangement," Hale said simply, a small smirk on his face.

Her'ak, Anubis' First Prime, who they had crossed paths with before, approached to stand next to Hale, the Teranian and Andari ambassadors behind him.

"Put down your weapons, Colonel, or I'll be forced to destroy these people!"

O'Neill gave Her'ak his most sour stare as he unhooked his P-90 and set it down on the floor, the rest of his companions dropping their weapons as well.

"The crystal?" Hale said, holding out his had toward Carter, who reluctantly handed the crystal over.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" O'Neill asked Hale, who gave him a stare.

"In exchange for this, Anubis has agreed to leave Kelownan territory untouched."

"Thus confirming my last statement."

"He knows our naquadria supplies are depleted, but I believe he may find another mine on Teranian territory."

"That's a lie!" Sevarin, the Teranian ambassador, exclaimed, which made Hale turn and approach him.

"One of your scientists is a Kelownan spy! We know you have been trying to build your own bomb for the last three years!"

"But we didn't... mine the naquadria..." Sevarin muttered. "We stole it from the Andaris..."

"What?" Noor, the Andari ambassador, muttered in shock, her hand shooting up and slapping Sevarin.

"Don't you see what's happening here?" Jonas asked, approaching them. "He's using you against each other!"

"Enough!" Her'ak barked.

"You can't afford to fight any longer! This whole planet is a target, not just Kelowna or Terania! You have to stand together!"

"I said, enough!" Her'ak yelled, backhanding Jonas to the floor.

Jonas grunted and tried to push himself up, but stopped when no less than three staff weapons were aimed at him. Instead, he just looked over his shoulder at them.

"You have got to start trusting each other, otherwise you are all going to become slaves!"

"If you're lucky," O'Neill added matter-of-factly.

"The crystal?" Her'ak said to Hale, holding out his hand, and the Kelownan Commander, after a few seconds of hesitation, handed the crystal over. Her'ak smirked. "Thank you," he said, then took a staff weapon from a nearby Jaffa and fired it into Hale's chest, killing him. Then, he looked over everyone else. "As for the rest of you, you will be publicly executed as an example to all those who would defy their god."

A gurgle of pain was heard, accompanied by the sound of a body hitting the floor. Everyone looked toward the sound, to see a Jaffa on the floor, his throat slit. Next, a grunt was heard, and another Jaffa dropped, then another, then another.

"What is this?!" Her'ak yelled.

Two Jaffa cried out suddenly and were slowly lifted into the air, dropping their weapons and struggling to reach behind their backs. Blood dripped from wounds in their backs, but the blood didn't hit the floor. Instead, it dropped onto an invisible figure, who slowly shimmered into view.

Standing there, eyes glowing red, rust-colored chassis now spattered with blood, was Frank, his arm blades buried into the backs of the two Jaffa.

"_Stealth mode disengaged. Carnage set to maximum. Prejudice set to maximum. Prepare for annihilation, meatbags,_" Frank said in his usual almost gleeful monotone.

Before anyone could react, the bunker was suddenly rocked by some outside force, knocking most of them off-balance, which enabled O'Neill, Carter, Teal'c, Daniel, and Jonas to take on the Jaffa, a firefight ensuing. A war cry was heard from Frank as he flung the two Jaffa into his enemies, then tore into them with his blades.

O'Neill was firing his P-90 wildly, shooting any Jaffa that came within his sights. He was greatly surprised, however, when he spun around and saw a Jaffa standing right behind him, staff weapon pointed directly at his face. Just as it seemed as though the Jaffa was going to fire, a seven-inch blade came flying out of nowhere, embedding itself into the side of the Jaffa's forehead, dropping him like a puppet with its strings cut.

Spinning around, O'Neill sat that the only ally in the direction the blade had come from was Frank, who seemed to have already gone back to slicing up Jaffa.

Well, he wasn't slicing them up at the moment. He had picked one of the Jaffa up by the ankle and was swinging him around like a club...

–

"Damn it, Frank..." Harry muttered, sitting in his lab with his AI the next day. He was currently scrubbing Frank's chassis. "I wish you'd stick with long range using the Gatling Cannon. The wounds cauterize, and don't bleed, which means you don't get blood on you..."

"_I fail to see the problem, master,_" Frank said casually. "_Blood spatter on my chassis, to me, is a charming quality. Like war paint._"

"Only problem is that you have crevices, Frank," Harry muttered, trying to get the cloth into every crack and crevice he could find in the armor plating on Frank's chest. "It's really hard to get all the blood. I'm probably going to have to take apart the armor again... From now on, you have to clean up your own messes..."

"_Oh, come now, master. You cannot honestly claim that you would rather be in the Gate Room saying good bye to than meatbag Quinn?_"

"No, I'd rather be at my workbench, making sure your flight tech is completely flawless, so that we can test it for you," Harry said, which made Frank perk up.

"_Very well, master. I shall pick myself apart and scrub myself clean,_" the AI said, taking the cloth from Harry. "_You get to work on your invention._"

Harry nodded and got to his feet, walking over to his workbench and sitting down in his chair. The flight tech looked like a backpack, rust-red to match Frank's chassis. The flight tech was fitted with a miniature version of an Asgard gravity field generator, which would allow Frank to fly by adjusting the gravity around himself. If he wanted to ascend, he'd adjust gravity so that it was pulling him upward. In essence, he just needed to adjust the gravity field generator so that he was pulled in the direction he wanted to go.

There was a knock on the door, and at Harry's urging, Daniel stepped inside, his hands in his pockets.

"Well, Jonas just left."

"Yeah, heard he was leaving today."

"I was surprised I didn't see you on Kelowna during the firefight," Daniel commented, sounding a bit curious. "Where were you?"

"Oh, I was in the sky, pelting Anubis' ship with plasma fire. Then I had to dodge like crazy when Baal decided I was his next target. The Sujan is strong, but it can't take on a fleet of motherships," Harry said with a chuckle. Then, he looked up from his slight tech and spun on the chair to look at Daniel. "How are you holding up?"

"Are you asking me this as a doctor, or as my friend."

"As a doctor. As your friend, I already know you're made of stronger stuff than you appear, but as a doctor, I feel somehow obligated to ask... Makes me regret getting that M.D., actually..."

"Oh. Well, I'm good, I think," Daniel said, walking into the lab and leaning against Harry's workbench, looking a bit confused. "It's all starting to come back to me, but..."

"Still no memory of what happened during your time as an Ascended?"

"No, nothing," Daniel said with a shake of his head. "I suppose that was the punishment."

"No doubt," Harry said, nodding. "But it's there. I guess you just have to wait for it to get unlocked, or something. Maybe there's a timer on those memories?"

"Yeah, your guess is as good as mine," Daniel muttered.

Harry hummed at that, looking Daniel over. The man looked a lot more comfortable than he had looked when Harry saw him on that planet.

"You look like you're adjusting."

"Yeah, I, uh..." Daniel nodded slowly. "I'm starting to feel like I'm home again."

"Always good to hear."

–

It was a week later that Harry was walking through the SGC with Daniel, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. His eyes were as bored as ever, but they had a slight look of curiosity in them.

"I heard there was a security breach."

"I heard the same thing," Daniel said. "From what the SF told me, someone tried to enter the base using Jack's security card."

"Oho, this should be interesting," Harry said with a smile. "This place has been pretty boring for a while, you know?"

"I kind of like things when they're boring. It gives me time to work."

"Boring work," Harry said, waving him off. "By the way, would you mind telling me why I only got one of my cloaking devices back?"

"You only just remembered that?" Daniel asked in amusement. "Been a bit distracted lately?"

"Work. So, tell me."

"Well, Jonas was captured, as you know. So, he convinced Anubis that 'Other boom' meant odder bohom, and that it activated the cloaking device's phasing abilities," Daniel explained, which made a grin grow on Harry's face. "Yeah, the Jaffa who tried it was not pleased, from what I understand."

Harry gave a bark of laughter as they reached the guarded room where the security breach was being held. The door was open, and Carter and Hammond were already inside.

The two entered, and Harry blinked at the sight. Sitting on the bunk in the room was a teenage boy with cropped, fair hair and brown eyes, wearing blue jeans, a gray t-shirt, and a beige jacket, all too big for him.

"This is the security breach?" Daniel asked, blinking in surprise.

"Daniel! Harry!" the boy said, sounding relieved. "Will you tell them who I am? Please?"

"Okay. Love to. Who are you?"

"Colonel?" Harry asked, a look of great amusement on his face. "You look so much younger. Was it something you did to your hair?"

The kid blinked in surprise, then looked incredibly relieved.

"Oh, good to see that magic eyeball of yours is still working!"

"Doctor," Hammond said, turning to Harry, "this boy is claiming to be Colonel O'Neill. Are you saying he's speaking the truth."

"Well, either he's telling the truth, or he cut out the Colonel's eyes and implanted them in his own skull, which I find very hard to believe," Harry commented, walking up to the kid and leaning closer so they were face to face.

"Hey!" O'Neill barked, waving his hand in front of his face. "Mind putting out that cigarette if you're gonna get so close?"

"Yes, I would mind," Harry said carelessly as he grabbed the sides of O'Neill's head, looking him over and roughly turning his head from side to side.

"Hey, easy! Is this your idea of bedside manners?"

"Bedside manners are overrated," Harry said simply. He pulled O'Neill off the bunk and stood him up, which forced the boy to grab the waistband of his pants to keep them from falling. "Well, you sure do look like the Colonel. The right eyes, the proper bone structure, and I'd bet Nym's knickers that your DNA is a good match..."

As Teal'c entered the room, Harry reached into his coat and took out his blood-sampling kit.

"What's that for?" O'Neill asked, eyeing the kit warily.

"I need a sample of your blood," Harry said simply, a small grin appearing on his face. "It won't hurt a bit..."

So, later found Harry sitting in the briefing room with the rest of SG-1 (save O'Neill), Hammond, and Fraiser.

"Doctor, what do you have?" Hammond asked, to which Harry shrugged.

"Like I said back in his room, he's Colonel O'Neill. His DNA is an exact match."

"Wait, wait, wait," Fraiser said, looking over the medical report in front of her. "This says the DNA is virtually identical to his, save for a tiny abnormality."

"Yeah, but I know what it is," Harry said, lighting a cigarette. "O'Neill is pretty legendary among the Asgard, and he's got some Ancient genes in him, so they put a genetic marker on his DNA to prevent tampering. That's the abnormality."

"So, can anyone tell me how Colonel O'Neill has managed to turn thirty years younger overnight?" Hammond asked, looking around at them all.

"This was just a preliminary analysis of his blood, but I need to take a closer look to be certain of my theory," Harry said, scratching his head. "His DNA matches O'Neill's, but... it's kind of weird."

"Weird?" Daniel asked, his eyebrows rising.

"It feels artificial," Harry explained. "I don't think that O'Neill has deaged. I think he's a clone."

"A... clone?"

"Yes. Like I said, it's hard to tell for sure without a closer look, but I'm seventy-seven percent sure he's a clone who never matured properly. And if that's the case, we've got bigger problems."

"What do you mean?" Fraiser asked, probably the only person in the room who actually had an interest in this beyond that of the safety of O'Neill.

"Well, if he's a clone who never matured, that means that the cloning was faulty, especially if he was grown overnight. A faulty cloning can bring a boatload of problems. His aging could halt completely, he could revert to his earlier state as a liquid in a test tube, or it could even go so far that his cellular structure is of so low quality that it will start to break down."

"How do you know?" Hammond asked seriously.

"I worked with the Asgard, General. I've read all their files on their cloning experiments. This happened very often," Harry said, his eyes narrowing. "Although, to be honest, the thing I'm the most concerned about isn't O'Neill's well-being."

"Then what is, Harry Potter?" Teal'c asked curiously.

"What worries me is that I have read about a case like this in Heimdall's files," Harry explained. "What worries me is that I'm going to find that he's a clone of Asgard design."

Hammond nodded slowly, then looked at them all. "Doctor, I want you to continue studying his DNA. If he is a clone, I want to know about it. The rest of you will search Colonel O'Neill's house, try to find any clues you can as to what happened."

"I'll get right on that," Harry said, picking up his medical report and walking off, puffing on his cigarette.

–

Harry sat in his lab the next day, studying the blood sample he had taken from O'Neill. His brow was furrowed as he looked over the DNA, scratching his head.

It was clearly the doing of an Asgard, he recognized the condition of the genes easily. It was similar to some attempts at cloning near two decades earlier. So, why now, all of a sudden?

He hummed, deep in thought, as he leaned back in his chair, away from the microscope. He dug his hand into his pocket and took out the communicator to Thor, pressing down on it.

"Hey, Thor, you got a minute?"

"_Thanks to you, Harry, I do,_" came Thor's voice from the crystal. "_How can I help you?_"

"I've encountered something strange here. See, there's a clone of O'Neill running around here, a young clone. His genetic makeup matches that of some Asgard attempts at cloning used nineteen years ago. Do you know anything about that?"

"_Nineteen earth years ago..._" Thor muttered thoughtfully. "_Back then, the geneticist in charge of the cloning project was Loki. However, he was stripped of his stature and expelled from the Asgard Ruling Council after we caught him performing unsanctioned experiments on humans._"

"Is he there, can I talk to him?"

"_No, he disappeared some time ago, during our war with the Replicators. We were unable to keep as close an eye on him as we wanted, and this allowed him to steal a research vessel and escape._"

"So, there's a good chance he's here, continuing his experiments?" Harry asked, and could almost hear Thor nodding.

"_That is highly likely. Normally, I would bring a number of ships to capture him, but his long-range scanners would see us coming, and he would flee before we even reached earth. I think the best way to capture him would be to set a trap for him._"

"Yeah, especially since he's probably got O'Neill somewhere on his ship."

"_Very true. I wish I could send you some help, Harry, but like I said..._"

"Yeah, he'd bugger off as soon as he noticed you were coming," Harry said, nodding to himself. "Alright, we'll try to set a trap for him, and I'll contact you when we've caught him."

"_It is appreciated, Harry. Thor out._"

Harry sighed as he pocketed the crystal, then rolled over the the phone on the wall, grabbing it and dialing a number.

"This is Hammond," came Hammond's voice on the other end.

"General, I've discovered something big, and you need to set up another meeting in the briefing room. Mini-Jack needs to be there, too. He needs to hear what I have to say."

"Is it that important, Doctor?"

"Oh yeah. We need to do this quickly."

"Understood. I'll get everyone to the briefing room in one hour."

"Good."

Harry hung up and rolled back to his workbench, taking a look at the blood again, before sighing.

An hour later, he walked into the briefing room to find SG-1 there, including mini-Jack, along with Hammond. He set the medical report in his hand down on the table and looked them all over.

"You're a clone," Harry told mini-Jack with his usual lack of tact, which made mini-Jack blink.

"Say that again?"

"You're a clone," Harry repeated without hesitating. "Brilliantly made, but intentionally built to not last. Couple that with the genetic marker the Asgard placed on your genes, and you didn't mature properly."

"The hell...?" mini-Jack muttered, furrowing his brow and looking at Harry like he was crazy.

"I contacted Thor. This O'Neill's genetic structure was very similar to some experiments with cloning that took place nineteen years ago," Harry explained. "He told me that Loki, who you might know as the Nordic god of mischief, is a geneticist who was kicked off the Asgard Ruling Council for performing unsanctioned experiments on humans. Apparently, he escaped from the Asgard on a research vessel during their war with the Replicators, and he has without a doubt returned here to continue his experiments."

"So...?" mini-Jack said expectantly.

"So, Loki beamed your original self up, cloned him, and replaced him with you," Harry said.

"Are you freaking kidding me?!" mini-Jack barked, looking around at the others. "I'm a freaking clone? Well, where's the original, then?"

"That's the thing, he's probably still on Loki's ship," Harry said as he lit a cigarette, puffing on it thoughtfully. "Thor doesn't want to move in to apprehend Loki, because he will scamper as soon as he detects Thor's ship on the long-range scanners. Usually, he wouldn't have any problems with that, but fact remains that O'Neill is still on the ship. Therefore, Thor is on standby, waiting for us to set a trap for Loki, coming up with some way to get onto his ship and incapacitate him. And we need to do it fast."

"I understand the urgency, but..." Daniel furrowed his brow. "Why did you say that with such an... urgent tone?"

"Because, like I said, the clone," Harry said, gesturing for mini-Jack, "wasn't meant to last. This means that his body will start breaking down, and he will die. I don't have the equipment required to fix that little genetic snag, so we need to get onto Loki's ship to do it."

"I'm gonna... die?" mini-Jack asked in shock, his eyebrows shooting up.

"Yes, so I think the utmost urgency is necessary," Harry said with a nod. "However, despite the fact that we could trap him, we have no idea when he might choose to make the switch again, if he ever will."

"You have a plan?" Carter asked, to which Harry nodded.

"Yeah. Loki left during the Replicator war, which means he probably doesn't know about me all that well. Therefore we can draw the conclusion that he has no idea about the Sujan. I can use its scanners to try to find Loki's ship. If we're lucky, he doesn't think we have scanners powerful enough to detect Asgard vessels."

"So you may be able to find his ship. Then what?" Hammond asked.

"Well, if I can find his ship, I can beam aboard. All Asgard beaming has the same frequency, so they can all beam between ships with ease. They just ask permission because it's polite."

"Do it, Doctor," Hammond said unnecessarily. After all, Harry would have done it even without being ordered to.

–

In a flash of light, Harry appeared in an Asgard lab in the research vessel orbiting earth. He knew he was probably the only person who had ever seen an Asgard visibly surprised (at least an Asgard in one of their old bodies).

The Asgard was standing at a console, and was staring at Harry in open shock. Nearby, hanging horizontally in midair, was O'Neill.

"Who are you?" the Asgard, Loki, asked, sounding as surprised as he looked. Harry saw his hand moving toward a crystal on the console, and he quickly crossed the distance between then, leaping over the console and grabbing the Asgard by the wrists.

"Ah, I wouldn't do that," he said with a smile. "Now, it's obviously been a while since you visited Othala. If you did, you wouldn't be here. You're Loki, right?"

"How did you know?" Loki asked, quite obviously struggling against Harry's grip, but that was like an ant struggling against an elephant.

"I am Harry Potter, now an official citizen of Othala, and honorary member of the people of Asgard," Harry said, grinning slightly. "I had a little talk with Thor about you. I recognized patterns in O'Neill's clone that were remarkably similar to your cloning attempts nineteen years ago. Thor told me all about you, and now that I have you captive..."

Harry reached into the pocket of his coat and took out his Asgard communicator.

"Alright, Thor, I'm on Loki's ship. Come as quickly as possible and dazzle him."

"_Understood, Harry._"

"Oh, no, you cannot!" Loki said, his eyes wide. "You must not do that!"

"So people keep telling me," Harry said, adjusting his grip so he was holding both of Loki's wrists with one hand, using the other to lock onto SG-1 on the console and beaming them up.

Carter, Daniel, Teal'c, and mini-Jack looked around in fascination as they appeared in the lab, mini-Jack immediately noticing the suspended O'Neill.

"Oh, wow... This is... weird..."

"Think you can get him down?" Daniel asked Harry, who nodded and entered the command on the console. The glowing, orange orb hanging from the ceiling stopped glowing, and O'Neill was roughly dropped to the floor with a thud which woke him right up.

O'Neill groaned and sat up groggily, holding his head, then looked around in confusion.

"Er... Where am I?"

"It's a long story, sir," Carter said, smiling softly at him.

"Ah... And who's the Asgard? And the kid?"

"That fits into the long story," Daniel said, clearing his throat. "I think it's best if we wait until Thor gets-"

A bright flash of light announced Thor's arrival.

"-here..."

"Thor?" Loki asked in surprise, staring at Thor, who approached him and Harry.

"Loki, what have you done?" Thor scolded, visibly glaring at Loki. "If you had remained on Othala, you would have met Harry here, and all this could have been avoided. Harry helped us create new bodies with a repaired genome. We are cured."

"You..." Loki mumbled, looking between Harry and Thor. "How could this human...?"

"Harry is unlike any human you will ever find, Loki. Nonetheless, you have committed a terrible crime. You should have known O'Neill's genetic code was safeguarded for his own protection."

"I trust you'll take care of him?" Harry asked, handing Loki over to Thor, who nodded.

"Yes. I will also beam one of my crew members over to bring this vessel back to Othala where it belongs," Thor assured them. "Loki will trouble you no more."

"Ah, about that. I have a request..." Harry said, but didn't elaborate as O'Neill approached them.

"Hey, Carter just filled me in. My clone is dying?"

"Unfortunately, the eventual genetic breakdown of the clone is not the cause of the marker in your DNA, but rather a result of Loki's inept methods," Thor said, sounding as apologetic as he could.

"There was no need for the clones to survive," Loki defended his actions, which caused mini-Jack, who had approached with the others, to look horrified at being written off in such a manner.

"But Harry can fix it, right?" O'Neill asked, gesturing for Harry. "I mean, according to Carter, he just lacked the equipment for it down on earth."

"You wish your clone to live?" Thor asked in amazement.

"You can't just let me die!" mini-Jack said, sounding outraged.

"He's just a kid," O'Neill reasoned.

"Are you certain, O'Neill?"

O'Neill paused for a moment, which caused mini-Jack to smack him on the arm.

"I'm thinking!" O'Neill barked at his clone, then looked at Thor, nodding. "Yeah."

"Very well. Harry, you are allowed to use this ship to repair his DNA," Thor told Harry, who nodded.

"I appreciate it. Don't worry, I won't do anything unethical."

"I never assumed you would."

"Really? That's funny, most people do."

"For good reason!" Carter said, giving Harry a meaningful look, which caused the scientist to look over his shoulder at her, contemplating. Then, he nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, true..."

–

**End of chapter twenty-two! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Hope this chapter didn't seem rushed. I think it felt kinda rushed, though I'm hoping that's just me... In the next chapter, Harry goes into the Ida galaxy and gets into some trouble aboard the Sujan!**** Stay tuned!**


	23. Chapter 23

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-three! Sorry it took a while! Worked as fast as I could. This idea has been stewing in my head from the second I started planning to write this fic. I just haven't been able to work it in. Anyway, in this chapter, Harry has an experience on the Sujan with a very old being!**

–

The Sujan came out of hyperspace in a very remote part of the Ida galaxy. Near the outskirts of the galaxy, in fact. Harry, sitting in the cockpit with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, stared at the planet in front of the ship. The planet itself wasn't visible. There was a thick layer of some kind of brown gas surrounding the entire planet, obscuring it from view.

"Now isn't this interesting?" he asked with a small smirk as he started scanning the planet. "A whole planet that just appears overnight..."

"_It is indeed curious, master,_" Aceso said softly, her holographic image appearing next to him, staring out the window. "_The planet's trajectory is also off. It is not affected by the gravitational pull of this system's sun. It is... moving away from the system._"

"What?" Harry asked, bringing the data up on the holographic screen in front of him. "I know I usually hate using this word, but that's impossible."

His eyes slowly widened as he looked over the data. It was moving at a speed of two hundred thousand kilometers per hour... _away_ from the sun!

"That can't be a bloody planet..."

"_What makes you say that, master?_" Aceso asked curiously.

"Because it doesn't obey the laws of physics!" Harry barked. "How many planets have you seen that seem to be saying, 'Bugger gravity! I'm out of here!'"

"_None, master, as planets are incapable of communicating. And if they were, I doubt they could speak English._"

Harry sighed, realizing that it was stupid to ask an AI a question in jest, as she was obviously going to take it literally. So, he didn't realize why he had actually asked it...

"_This is strange, master,_" Aceso commented as Harry set a course to pursue the planet. "_The scanners cannot penetrate the gas surrounding the planet. I cannot see what is under it._"

"What is that gas?"

Aceso was quiet for a moment, then said, "_Unknown._"

"What?" Harry asked in surprise, blinking as he snapped his head toward the hologram. "What do you mean, unknown?"

"_I mean, master, the gas does not match anything up until now encountered and documented by either the Asgard or humans,_" Aceso elaborated as the results of the scan showed up on the holographic screen, showing what the gas was made up of.

It was insane. There were so many elements in the gas, some of which were...

"The hell?" Harry muttered. "Aceso, is it just me, or does that gas remind you of the makeup of a carbon-based lifeform?"

"_Indeed, master, it carries many similarities, but those are just a few of the elements this gas is made up of. Though I admit, it is... strange._"

Harry hummed and puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette.

"_Master, are you contemplating whether or not to enter the gas to study the surface of the planet?_" Aceso asked after near a minute of silence.

"You know me too well, Aceso," Harry said, taking his cigarette out of his mouth and vanishing it. "Alright, here we go."

The ship moved steadily closer to the planet, and Harry found himself feeling excited. This planet was a complete enigma, and he was probably the first person to ever see it, let alone to move in closer to study it.

He had originally been a bit iffy about going to see it. He thought Thor had only been pulling his leg when he told him about a planet that had suddenly appeared at the outskirts of the Ida galaxy overnight.

Watching on the holographic screen how the distance between the ship and the planet got steadily shorter, Harry reached into his pocket for another cigarette, but decided against it. It was better not to smoke right now.

The ship entered the gas surrounding the planet, but what greatly surprised Harry was that when it had flown some distance into the gas, the ship suddenly came to a full stop.

"Aceso, what's happening?" Harry asked, pushing the sublight engines to full, but finding that the ship didn't move a single inch.

"_I do not understand, master. There is nothing stopping us from moving. And yet... we are not moving..._" Aceso said, and although her tone was, as usual, monotone, Harry could hear that she was puzzled.

"Damn it," Harry muttered. Nothing he tried could get the ship to move. "Damn my curiosity! My instincts were telling me to stay the hell away from this damn gas!"

"_I am attempting to figure out what is stopping the ship from moving, master,_" Aceso said as her holographic image looked around.

"Work as fast as you-"

Harry stopped speaking as his head snapped to the side to look over his shoulder, staring at the path leading into the control room, but seeing nothing.

"_Master?_"

"I thought I heard something..." Harry muttered, making sure to take a good look with his right eye for anything. "Anyway, Aceso, work as fast-"

Harry stopped once more when he suddenly felt an invisible form pull him back against the pilot seat.

"The hell...?"

The same invisible force suddenly lifted him out of his seat and slammed him straight up into the ceiling, then brought him straight down into the floor with an incredible force. Before Harry could so much as grunt in discomfort, he was suddenly flung out into the control room, slamming into the side of the holographic table that showed a galaxy map.

"What-"

The force grabbed him around the wrist and started flinging him around like a rag doll, sending him crashing into the floor, the ceiling, the walls, and the various consoles around the room. Then, it flipped him over, and slammed him face-first straight into the holographic table, smashing his head through it and knocking him unconscious.

–

Tick, tock... Tick, tock... Tick, tock...

"_Eh?"_

_Harry, having just felt darkness take him, blinked his eyes open in confusion as he looked around. There was that sound. That sound from his dreams... But... where the hell was he? And why did he hear the ticking now? He hadn't heard it for years..._

_Looking around, Harry saw nothing but whiteness. No walls, no ceiling... He wouldn't even have believed there was a floor if he didn't feel himself standing on it._

"_Turn it off..."_

"_Huh?" Harry blinked and looked around, trying to find the source of the voice that had just whispered to him. "Who's there?"_

"_What are you talking about? It's me!" the voice said, louder this time. Harry continued looking around, but saw nothing by whiteness. The voice sighed. "Below you."_

_Harry looked down, and saw his shadow stretching out ahead of him, to show a shadow of himself, so stretched out that it was as though a lamp was almost right behind him. He blinked down at the shadow, which seemed to have holes cut into it for eyes, and a rectangular slot for a mouth._

"_Huh?" Harry uttered again, unable to stop blinking._

"_Why do you look so surprised at seeing yourself?" the voice asked. "Don't you recognize me?" The shadow hummed, its round eyes 'closing' slightly to become oval. "Anyway, never mind that for now. All I want you to do now is just turn it off..."_

"_Turn what off?" Harry asked in confusion. The shadow moved on its own, turning its head and raising an arm to point at something to Harry's left. He turned his head to see something that definitely wasn't there before._

_A small stool stood a few feet away from him, and on top of it stood a very old-fashioned radio._

"_Can you hear it?" the shadow asked, still pointing at the radio. "It's hurting my ears..."_

"_I don't hear anything," Harry said, taking a step closer to the radio._

"_No!" the shadow yelled. "If you can't hear it, that's good! Don't walk closer. Once you start hearing it, it'll never stop! Day in and day out, minute after minute, second after second, constantly grinding your ear drums..."_

...chichichichichshhh...

"_Wait, I heard something..." Harry said suddenly, blinking. The eyes of the shadow widened._

"_Oh no! Turn it off! Hurry!"_

_Harry quickly stepped over to the radio and started running his hands over it._

...ChichichiChichshhhhchichshhhh...

"_There's no off-switch!"_

_At least the sound was bearable. Harry continued looking over the radio, lifting it to look underneath it, checking the front, the sides, and the back, while the shadow's mouth curved downward, its eyes turning oval again._

"_It's got you too..."_

"_What are you...?" Harry started, but trailed off and looked to the radio in shock as the noise increased in volume._

...CHICHICHSHHHHCHICHICHICHSHHHHH...

_Harry clutched at his head as he felt a headache coming on. Merlin, that noise! It was enough to drive any man... Any..._

...CHSHHHHHCHICHSHHHHCHICHICHICHI.._._

_It was... Harry's fists clenched, and he felt a muscle under his left eye twitch in annoyance. He looked to his shadow, to see that two blobs had formed under its eyes like tears._

"_For what it's worth, I'm sorry..."_

...CHCHCHICHSHHHHCHICHICHICHSHHH.._._

"_I did try to warn you. I... (_CHICHICHSHH_) ...and we could have... (_CHSHHHCHSHHHH_) ...truly sorry..."_

_Harry twitched in rage, and with a cry of "SHUT UP!" he grabbed the radio and threw it into the floor, smashing it to pieces._

...CHICHICHSHHHHHCHSHHHHCHICHI...

"_It doesn't work like that," the shadow said as the noise continued. "You have to turn it off."_

"_But how do I-"_

...CHICHICHICHSHHHCHICHI...

"_Just turn it off."_

...CHSHHHHCHICHICHSHHHH...

"_Turn it off, Harry..."_

...CHICHICHSHHHHCHICHICHI...

"_Turn it off now!"_

...CHICHICHSHHHHHCHICHICHICHSHHH...

"_TURN IT OFF!"_

_Harry threw his head back, grabbed his hair in frustration, and screamed._

–

When Harry woke up, shooting into a sitting position as his eyes snapped open, he found himself in his bed in his cabin. His glasses were still on his face, and they were surprisingly not broken. He rubbed his head as he sat up, a bit confused as to how he got there, and what the hell that dream had been about...

"Aceso," he spoke, rising from the bed. There was no response. "Aceso!"

Still nothing...

"Okay..." Harry muttered to himself as he made his way out of the cabin, stepping into the lift and pushing the button labeled with the number 2. The door hissed shut, and the lift started moving.

Harry flinched forward and spun around when he felt something touching his shoulder from behind, and found himself staring at his shadow, the same shadow as the one from his dream.

The shadow raised its hand, and Harry was amazed to see its arm reaching out of the wall, stretching out and reaching toward him. Harry backed up until his back was against the door, but the shadow's arm kept stretching, getting closer and closer to his chest.

Just as the shadow's fingers were an inch away from his chest, the door hissed open, and Harry stumbled back into the control room, and when he blinked once, the shadow was gone.

"This is weird..." Harry muttered, shaking his head to clear it as he turned around to take a look at the control room.

A few of the consoles were broken, and so was the holographic table where his head had been smashed into it. "Aceso! What's going on?"

There was still no response from Harry's AI, so he moved into the cockpit, looking over the controls. None of them were working. It was as though the ship had lost all power. Well, if something had drained the ship's entire power supply, then it was no surprise that Aceso was quiet as well. Having been hooked up to the ship, she would have been drained of power as well.

Harry reasoned that he was going to have to recharge the ship's power supply before he could get out of there, so he turned to leave the cockpit, but blinked in surprise when he saw something moving across the control room to hide behind the holographic table. It looked almost like a kid...

Harry made his way out of the cockpit and back into the control room, moving around the holographic table, to see a child sitting on the floor, leaning against the table. It wasn't just any child, though. He recognized the wild hair and green eyes. It was Harry when he was young, about eight years old...

Though this kid was different... very different... He had all the stitches Harry had now, and then some. His whole face was covered his stitches, as was his neck.

In the kid's hands was a stuffed animal that Harry recognized. It was his old stuffed rabbit, Bugs, who had been his 'training dummy' during his early years, having crude yarn stitches crisscrossing its entire body.

"What the hell is this?" Harry asked in surprise, staring down at the kid, who was sewing stitches into the rabbit with thick, red yarn, using a very large needle. The kid slowly turned his head to look up at him, a grin appearing on his face.

"Hello."

"Huh..." Harry uttered in surprise, blinking at the kid sitting there and grinning at him. "This... is weird..."

The child just grinned at him, staring with eyes that looked a bit glazed, like he wasn't really in control of his actions, something that Hermione had claimed that he did whenever he let his instincts take over, and he moved based on his desires. He could tell the child was doing the same thing, as he was still stitching up the stuffed rabbit without even looking at it.

"What is this?" Harry asked, looking around. "Hallucinations, obviously, but... what the hell? Or... is it a dream?"

The child blinked slowly, one eyelid closing a millisecond faster than the other. Then, he tilted his head to the side and looked around.

"Does this feel like a dream?"

"No," Harry answered, taking his own pulse. "Hallucinations, then." He moved his finger from his wrist to his forehead and closed his eyes, feeling around. "No... There's nothing wrong with my brain... That leaves the question... what are you?"

Harry's eyes opened, and when he looked down, the child was no longer there.

"What the hell is going on here?" Harry muttered to himself, heading back to the lift and entering it, pushing the button labeled '3', which would take him down to the 'crew deck,' where the interface for Aceso was also located.

The door hissed shut, and the lift started heading down. Harry took this time to remove his glasses and rub his eyes. Something was terribly wrong here, he knew that much. However, it wasn't a hallucination, unless...

Harry's eyes snapped open as he put his glasses back on.

Maybe it actually was an hallucination, and maybe he just hallucinated that his brain was in pristine condition?

The lift came to a stop, and the door hissed open, allowing Harry to step onto the crew deck, only to immediately stop as soon as he exited the lift.

There, on the wall in front of him, was the shadow again. Only its mouth wasn't rectangular this time. It had a crescent moon shape, showing a wide grin that would have been pretty damn scary to any normal man. But Harry had encountered the shadow once, so he had already gotten over the initial shock-induced fear.

"**You're not going to find anything in there,**" the shadow spoke slowly in a voice that sounded like Harry's own, only distorted, and spoken in a lower pitch. "**Aceso isn't there.**"

"And you'd know?"

"**I would.**"

"I see," Harry muttered, rubbing his chin. "So that means that you're either the result of my subconsciousness simply telling me of a worst-case scenario, since I don't actually know if Aceso is there or not, or you're not an actual hallucination."

"**Sharp,**" the shadow quipped, its grin widening. "**So, which one am I?**"

"I haven't quite figured that one out yet," Harry admitted.

"**I could tell you, but you have no idea of knowing if I'm telling the truth or not,**" the shadow said, giving a dark chuckle. "**So why waste both our time?**"

"Very true," Harry said, and then turned away from the shadow without another word, heading around the lift and walking toward his lab on the starboard side of the ship. The door to the lab hissed open as soon as he reached it, and he headed straight through the lab, which was surprisingly under-equipped, given Harry's nature (He was planning on stocking up on tools and equipment on Othala), to the doors in the back of the lab, which hissed open as well.

The AI chamber was filled with electronic equipment made for the sole purpose of interfacing an AI with the ship. The only problem was that there was no AI in the AI chamber. Aceso was gone, as the shadow had predicted.

"**Told you,**" came the gloating voice of the shadow from behind him, making him look over his shoulder to see that it had formed on the doors to the chamber, which had shut as soon as he entered.

"I'm giving up guessing. Tell me what you are," Harry ordered, but the shadow just chuckled.

"**You say that I'm either not a hallucination (which would mean I'm some foreign entity), or just your subconsciousness telling you of worst-case scenarios... What if I'm both?**"

"That... was no help at all..." Harry muttered, glaring lightly at the shadow, who gave another dark chuckle. "You know, I don't really have time for this, alright? So please, tell me what you are, or shut up."

The shadow was quiet, it just kept grinning at him. Harry sighed at that and approached the doors, which hissed open, taking the shadow with them.

Harry felt that he needed to take some time to think, so he headed up to his cabin, but when he stepped inside, he stopped immediately when he saw someone sitting on his bed.

"Nym?"

Tonks, who had kept her head bowed, looked up at him, to show that her face, like the child's, was stitched up. She smiled softly at him.

"Wotcher, Harry," she said pleasantly.

"You know, this isn't exactly helping in answering the question of whether you're a hallucination or not..." Harry muttered with a frown, staring at Tonks, who lost her smile.

"Harry, why are we together?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Expect me to answer that?"

"Indulge me," Tonks said as Harry moved closer, pulling up his chair and sitting down. "You have no idea what love really is. You think it's a ridiculous emotion, one that doesn't really have any place in this universe. You hate love. And yet, you claim to love me."

"You misunderstand," Harry said, shaking his head. "I don't hate love. I just feel it's bothersome, because it tends to force people to ignore logic and reason, if the one they love is in danger, or something like that. I think it's an emotion that does more harm than good when it matters most."

"Spoken like a true scientist..." Tonks muttered, crossing her arms. "So, why do you love me? Why do you continue to be with me when it's quite clear that you don't enjoy it?"

"I'm not going to say that I love _you_, because you're not Nym," Harry said, glaring lightly at her, "but I love her. I don't know why I continue to be with her, other than the fact that I greatly enjoy her company."

"That is your conscious reasoning. But are you so sure it's the truth?" Tonks asked, the corners of her mouth curving up into a smirk. "Could it not be a subconscious desire manifesting a feeling of love **toward her?**"

Harry narrowed his eyes as he watched Tonks slowly fade away, to be replaced by the shadow, which was now fully three-dimensional, sitting on the bed in her place, grinning widely at him.

"What are you on about?" Harry muttered.

"**Could it not be madness, at the very root of it all?**" the shadow asked, chuckling. "**Could your love for Tonks not be... your subconscious trying desperately to cling to your last pieces of humanity, to ensure that you not turn into a monster?**"

Harry's eyes narrowed further, staring at the shadow. He was thinking hard about this whole thing, and then, a smirk grew on his face.

"The planet," he spoke up suddenly, which made the shadow visibly blink, its large white eyes closing and opening at an alarming speed. "Or is it the gas?"

"**Pardon?**"

"The gas would be likely, but then, there would be no way for it to get into this ship. The planet inside, however, as improbable as it may be, could have telepathic and telekinetic abilities, which would explain just why I was flung around my cockpit like a ragdoll."

The shadow chuckled again.

"**You are very sharp, Harry. Very well, I'll be honest with you. It is the gas, directed by the planet. Although, I am not actually a planet.**"

"Then what are you?"

"**I am the Observer, the last of my kind,**" the shadow said, spreading its arms out as if to say 'Look at me.' "**I don't quite remember how many of us once existed, nor do I remember just how old I am. In any case, I have been observing the universe for billions of years, studying the various lifeforms and taking proverbial notes on their evolution.**"

"I see..." Harry muttered, narrowing his eyes again, trying to detect any lies from the shadow.

"**You drew me here, Harry. You are a human of the planet earth, and yet you have a mind with the potential to rival the Lanteans.**"

"Lanteans?"

"**You refer to them as Ancients,**" the shadow explained. "**I felt curious, and so I came to observe you. Imagine my surprise when you came to me. I knocked you out and entered your mind, allowing me to appear before you in this form.**"

"And why, exactly, did you take that form?" Harry asked, gesturing for the shadow. "Why Nym? Why the child?"

"**It's one thing to play some tricks in dreams or reading conscious thoughts,**" the shadow said, "**it's a whole other thing to delve into a person's subconscious. When I accessed your conscious thoughts and infiltrated your dream, I was intent on making you believe the dream was real, and played to a bit of symbolism.**"

"The radio?"

"**Yes. You have often, in your thoughts, likened difficult problems to a disturbing noise that cannot be turned off, going on and on until you lose your mind. I attempted to replicate the feeling, and tried to discover the results.**"

"You tried to drive me insane?"

"**Your madness is a curious one,**" the shadow admitted. "**It is there, you are quite mad. However, you have great control over it. Not even the incessant noise was capable of pushing you over the edge. So, I tried a different approach. I tried to show you eery images, such as yourself as a child, and this shadow form. When those sights didn't affect you, I tried to appeal to your rationality, by appearing as Tonks, tried to get you to reason that your love for her was false. Still, I was unable to get you to tap into the madness.**"

"But why?" Harry asked, furrowing his brow. "Why did you try to drive me insane."

"**As stated earlier, your mind is impressive. Not only is it impressive, but if you tap into your true potential, it would be a force to be reckoned with. If you were to be driven insane, you would become an unstoppable force of destruction. If there was any risk of such a thing happening, I would have kept you here, and I would have killed you. This was a test to see if you were worthy to leave my gas.**"

"I see... And am I?"

"**I would have wanted to put some more pressure on you, but you figured out what I am, and so it would be useless. It is now my choice, whether to trust your ability to keep your madness in check, or not...**"

"And...?"

"**And... what do you think?**"

Harry blinked at that. "What?"

"**What do you think?**" the shadow repeated. "**Do you think you would be capable of keeping your madness reined in, no matter what happens?**"

Closing his eyes, Harry thought about it. He could have just said yes just to please the shadow, but being able to enter his head, it would no doubt know the intention behind the answer, so he had to actually think about it.

"I... haven't a clue," he admitted, giving the shadow a shrug. "Since I don't know what will happen in the future, I can't say for sure how I'd deal with things... but you've no doubt seen inside my head. You know how much I hate being a slave to anything..."

A grin spread on the shadow's face.

"**Good answer,**" it said, chuckling. "**I'm going to trust you, Harry, but I'll be watching...**"

The shadow rose to its feet, and Harry got the impression of it giving him a hard stare, judging by the intensity of it.

"**If you fall prey to your madness, I will return.**"

"Then I guess we'll never meet again," Harry said with utmost certainty, nodding to the shadow, who grinned wider.

"**I hope so. Goodbye.**"

Harry's eyes widened when his vision started darkening, until he saw nothing but blackness. Then, he became aware of a throbbing in his head, and he blinked several times to clear his vision.

He found himself staring at several whitish-blue lights, and something sharp was poking him in the neck. He was lying face-down on something, and when he pushed himself up he found that he was laying on the holotable that he had been smashed into earlier.

"_Master? Have you awakened?_" came Aceso's voice as Harry sat up and rubbed his head.

"Yeah, I'm awake. How long was I out?"

"_Twenty-three seconds, master. I was almost worried,_" Aceso said in a voice that told him that she hadn't been worried in the slightest. "_Something curious just happened, master. The gas surrounding the planet appears to have pushed the ship out of it. Shall I make another attempt to reach the surface?_"

"No," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and fishing out a cigarette, lighting it. "No, we're done here."

"_Master?_"

Harry grunted as he made his way back to the bridge, getting into the pilot seat.

"As much as I'd like to study that thing, it's too much of a bother to do so. Although, I'm sure that it's going to drive me up the bloody wall..."

"_Are you certain, master? The planet is picking up speed._"

"Leave it."

"_Yes, master,_" Aceso said as Harry turned the ship around. "_Master, the scans show that the planet has disappeared._"

"I think that's for the best."

–

**End of chapter twenty-three! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! I was trying to explain that Harry is kinda like a bomb just waiting to go off. He has things that keep him in control, such as Nym, Hermione, and Adrian, but if they hadn't been in his life, Harry would have been a very sadistic and violent mad scientist. Anyway, in the next chapter, we skip a couple of episodes, and then have an encounter with a fierce, female clan of Jaffa! ****Stay tuned!**


	24. Chapter 24

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-four! Wow, I've taken a really long time, haven't I? Sorry, I've been kinda distracted. Very distracted. With hundreds of ideas floating around in your head, it's hard to focus on just one. Anyway, in this chapter, Harry and his team encounter the Jaffa version of the Amazon, and Harry gets a nice birthday present!**

–

"Harry!"

Harry stopped as he wandered through the SGC with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, glancing over his shoulder to find O'Neill jogging up to him.

"Morning, Colonel," Harry greeted with a nod as O'Neill caught up with him. "Need something?"

"Not really, but orders are orders," O'Neill said. "You've been gone for a while here and there, and Hammond feels you need to get some more time clocked on the field. Also, we're gonna meet some Jaffa interested in freedom, and we feel it's best if you join us to properly explain the Prometheus Serum to them."

"That sounds... incredibly boring..." Harry muttered, furrowing his brow. "Why would I _want_ to come with you?"

"Because Hammond's ordering it?"

Harry made sure to give O'Neill his blankest stare, his eyes like chips of green ice. O'Neill coughed awkwardly into his fist, thinking deeply.

"Pretty please?"

Harry still didn't answer. He just puffed on his cigarette as his head slowly tilted to the side.

"Does it involve giant, ancient creatures with a penchant for entering one's mind and digging around in there?"

O'Neill blinked at that, looking unsure of why Harry asked the question. Nonetheless, he shook his head.

"Not that I know of..."

"Oh, good, then I guess I can come. Don't have much to do, anyway, I suppose."

"Are you gonna be bringing Aceso?" O'Neill wanted to know. "I don't think Frank would be such a good choice..."

"I don't think I'll bring any of them," Harry decided, shaking his head. "You know, they usually go with me everywhere. I get no feeling of... privacy, you know?"

O'Neill shrugged, then turned and walked off.

That was how Harry found himself standing in a forest on a distant planet, his back against a tree as SG-1 hid in various places, waiting. A lone Jaffa came walking through the forest, looking around anxiously and starting at every sound he heard.

"Right, hold it, right there!" O'Neill announced once the Jaffa reached them, and he popped up from behind the bush he had used as a hiding place, his P90 raised and aimed at the Jaffa. Carter and Daniel approached him from other angles, their weapons also aimed at him as Harry stepped out from behind his tree.

"I am Ryk'l, of the Goa'uld Moloc," the Jaffa announced as Teal'c approached him, and they stood face-to-face. Ryk'l straightened up upon seeing him. "Shal'kek nem'ron."

"I too will die free, brother," Teal'c said, offering his hand in friendship, which Ryk'l accepted.

"Teal'c of the Tau'ri, your legend precedes you. Thank you for meeting me."

"We have been told that there are many here who believe in the dream of freedom for all Jaffa."

Suddenly, a staff weapon blast came flying through the woods, hitting Ryk'l in the back and killing him instantly. SG-1 immediately took up defensive positions behind a rock as several more blasts went flying through the air.

"Well, this wasn't quite unexpected, was it?" Harry commented, lighting a cigarette as his teammates poked their heads out now and then to fire back upon the attacking Jaffa. "I actually kinda had the feeling that something like this would happen."

"How could you know?" Daniel asked, ducking down again and reloading.

"This _always_ happens."

Suddenly, a huge wave of staff weapon fire came from their right, aimed at the Jaffa. As the weapons fire annihilated the Jaffa, O'Neill and Daniel poked their heads up to look where it was coming from with puzzled faces.

"More rebel Jaffa?" O'Neill asked Teal'c.

"There is only one way to be certain," Teal'c said, then shouted, "Shal'kek Nem'ron!"

Everyone looked into the smoke drifting past where the weapons fire came from, but no response came.

"Shal'kek Nem'ron!" Teal'c called again.

Now, movement could be seen through the smoke, and everyone were surprised to see two female Jaffa emerging from the smoke, staff weapons in their hands. The first woman, a black woman with very kind eyes, spoke gently to them.

"Warriors of the Tau'ri, we mean you no harm."

"I'm getting the distinct feeling that she's telling the truth," Harry commented, rising to his feet and brushing himself off.

"Please, come with us," the Jaffa woman said as four other women joined them, making a total of six.

Before anyone could respond, a glider swooped overhead, causing everyone to look up.

"Shal'kek, tal'kree," the black Jaffa woman told the woman next to her, who nodded and left. She looked back at SG-1. "The Stargate will not be accessible for long, we must hurry."

Another female Jaffa knelt beside one of the wounded Jaffa and took out a canister. She removed the Jaffa's symbiote and placed it in the canister. Most of SG-1 looked on, horrified, while Harry just raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"What's she doing?" Daniel asked, but the black Jaffa shook her head.

"There's no time to explain here, please come with us."

"Kel ma lek!" a rather aggressive and masculine-looking Jaffa woman exclaimed.

"Kree shak nel!" the black Jaffa said, snapping her head around to look at her.

"They're outsiders!"

"They are SG-1 of the Tau'ri."

Harry puffed on his cigarette for a few moments, then raised his hand.

"Well, I'm all for going with them. This seems interesting."

–

SG-1, led by the female Jaffa they had learned was named Mala, entered a campsite on the planet Hak'tyl. There were a few large tents around the outside, some women were cooking over open fires, and some young children saw them and immediately ran away. All the women they passed eyed them with distrust, though. Mala led them to a large tent in the middle of the settlement.

"You must forgive them, for many of the young this is the first time they have seen men."

A young woman, about thirteen, and an older woman, watched SG-1 carefully. O'Neill looked around as a woman came out of the main tent, looking proud and solemn, with the look of a leader.

"This is Ishta, our leader," Mala said, gesturing the for blond woman as she stepped down from her tent, and the masculine woman came out after her.

"Well, howdy, Ma'am, it's nice to meet you," O'Neill said, giving a small wave, but the woman just walked straight past him, to Teal'c. "I've heard so... actually, I've heard nothing about you..."

He trailed off as Ishta stopped in front of Teal'c.

"Teal'c, of Chulak. Former First Prime of Apophis. Shol'va who has become legend."

O'Neill leaned over to Daniel and whispered, "Bit thick, don't you think?" only to be ignored.

"I am no legend," Teal'c told Ishta. "I fight, as any true-hearted Jaffa, for the freedom that we deserve."

He bowed his head, and Ishta returned the nod. He then gestured to his team.

"This is Daniel Jackson, Major Carter, Colonel O'Neill, and Harry..."

Teal'c trailed off when he noticed that their mad scientist teammate wasn't with them. Only now did the rest of SG-1 notice this, and looked around in confusion.

"Um... where did Harry go?" O'Neill wanted to know.

"This can't be good..." Carter said slowly.

"Harry without supervision among people who haven't been firmly named allies?" Daniel said, scratching his head. "Yeah, that's definitely not good..."

Meanwhile, said mad scientist's reason for leaving the group was right in front of him. He had entered a tent inside which he had heard a cough, and now found himself staring at what appeared to be a middle-aged Jaffa woman (though she was no doubt considerably older), kneeling next to a sick-looking girl who couldn't have been older than ten, who was sweating heavily, laying on fur blankets that were supposed to pass for proper bedding.

"Who are you?" the woman demanded, drawing a blade from behind her back.

"Relax, I'm a doctor," Harry said, grinning slightly. "I couldn't help overhearing this young lady's cough. It sounds bad."

The woman glared suspiciously at Harry for a long time, but the girl breaking into coughing again caused her to focus her attention elsewhere, putting the blade away.

"She has reached the Age of Prata," she said, staring down at the girl. "She needs a symbiote."

Harry moved over to the girl's other side and knelt, taking her wrist and checking her pulse. Then, he started looking her over with his right eye as he placed his hand on her forehead.

"Yeah, her immune system is shutting down," he concluded, putting his fingers against her temples. "I'd give her a day, maybe two, before it fails completely."

Without further ado, he reached into his coat and took out the metal case he had brought, which contained five vials of Prometheus Serum. He fished out a syringe and filled it up with the serum, humming to himself.

"What are you doing?" the female Jaffa asked.

"This is the Prometheus Serum, my invention," Harry explained, sticking the needle into the girl's arm and injecting the serum. "It is a replacement for the symbiote. Many Jaffa have started using it, and it works fine."

Harry fished an auto-injector out of his pocket and held it out to the Jaffa.

"This is another dose of the serum. What I injected her with will last for about twenty-one days. If you don't find a symbiote before then, inject her with this. It will give her another twenty-one days. Preferably, you should inject it after twenty days, just to be safe."

"Thank you," the Jaffa said, taking the injector. "Who are you?"

"Harry Potter, nice to meet you," Harry said with a grin, before getting to his feet and leaving the tent, lighting a cigarette...

...only to end up facing the dangerous ends of no less than thirty-two staff weapons as soon as he exited the tent.

"Huh..." Harry uttered, puffing slowly on his cigarette. "So, I guess you've never heard about not biting the hand that feeds you, huh?"

"Woah, woah!" came O'Neill's voice as he pushed his way through the crowd with the rest of the team. "He's with us! Harry, what the hell are you doing?"

"Samaritan work?" Harry offered with a shrug. "Noticed this girl's immune system failing, so I gave her some Prometheus Serum. She's doing better now."

"It's alright!" the female Jaffa from inside the tent said as she came out. "This man helped Merith. She is quickly getting well."

A blond woman, who carried herself like a leader, narrowed her eyes at Harry.

"Who are you?"

"Harry Potter, genius. It's a pleasure, I'm sure," Harry said, giving a lazy salute.

"You are guests here, but it would be unwise for you to wander around unsupervised," the blond leader-woman said.

"Harry, this is Ishta, leader of these Jaffa," Carter said as the blond leader nodded in greeting.

–

"Well, this is a bit... odd," O'Neill commented as he, Harry, Daniel, and Teal'c stood outside Ishta's tent, waiting for Carter to come out. She was in there talking to Ishta, Mala, and the aggressive Neith-woman.

"Maybe they just feel more comfortable talking to Sam?" Daniel suggested, opening a power bar.

"Why, because we have penises?"

Daniel coughed awkwardly and held out the power bar.

"Power bar?"

"Yeah, thanks," O'Neill said, taking the power bar.

"I don't think it's the penis-thing, so much as it is the fact that Jaffa women under Moloc have lived for thousands of years being seen as inferior to male Jaffa," Harry remarked, putting out his cigarette. "I think they're actually quite grateful not to have such a thing dangling between their legs and hitting their knees."

Daniel and O'Neill both blinked at that, paused for a second, then slowly turned to look at Harry incredulously. The mad scientist, however, hummed and rubbed his chin.

"I suppose they are also grateful that they don't possess the inflated ego of men, or the ability to lie blatantly about their manhoods..."

Daniel and O'Neill were spared having to respond to that by the flap to Ishta's tent opening, Carter stepping outside.

"Harry," she said, approaching her team. "I need you to go in there and explain the Prometheus Serum to Ishta. I'd do it myself, but you know it better than I do. Oh, and... try to be nice."

"Of course," Harry said with a nod as he started walking toward the tent. "I'll try not to pull down my pants and wave my penis in her face, but the temptation may be too great to resist."

Just before he entered the tent, he heard Carter asking the team, "He was joking, right?"

As he stepped inside, he took a look around. The tent was almost empty. It had a small bedding to the side, along with crates and supplies lining the walls, a table in the center with six cushions around it, and a symbol hanging on the back wall, in front of which sat Ishta on what had to be the closest thing to a chair these Jaffa had.

"Love what you've done with the place," Harry said, clicking his tongue. "Not the way I would've gone, but to each his own. It's a bit too tribal to me."

"Are you insulting us?" Neith asked, sitting at the table on a cushion to Ishta's right, while Mala sat to the left.

"No, I'm making small-talk. Apparently, it's a concept that's foreign to _all_ Jaffa, not just Teal'c," Harry said, rubbing his chin.

"Sit down," Ishta said, gesturing for the table.

"I'd rather stand."

"Why?"

"Because I am the type of man who doesn't like the thought of not being in control of the situation," Harry explained, making a gesture toward the cushion by the table. "If I sit down on that cushion, while you sit there, looking down on me, you will be established as the superior force of this conversation. You would be in a position of power, making everyone look up to you. The prospect doesn't sit well with me."

"You think yourself superior to us?" Ishta asked, and Harry found it hard to discern if she sounded insulted, curious, or both.

"Of course, I'm Dr. Harry Potter, after all," Harry said with a small grin. "But don't take it personal. I'm superior to everyone."

Ishta narrowed her eyes at Harry, who thought he saw the corners of her mouth twitch upward into what was undoubtedly a smirk.

"You must infuriate the other members of your team."

"Like you wouldn't believe," Harry said, his grin widening. "But I'm not in here so we can talk about me, am I? You want to know more about the Prometheus Serum, correct?"

"Major Carter has told us only very little about it, but the results are visible for everyone to see, judging by what you did for Merith," Mala said, nodding. "But we would like to hear more about it."

"Very well," Harry said, taking out the case with auto-injectors and taking one out, holding it up for Ishta to see. "The Prometheus Serum is a rather genial drug concocted by yours truly. I long studied the chemical makeup of a symbiote, and extracted the chemicals it injects into the Jaffa, granting them their longevity, strength, et cetera. I then worked to create a viable replacement for this chemical. I won't bore you with the technical bit, since you wouldn't understand it anyway, but in essence, this is a symbiote."

"I does not look like one," Ishta commented.

"I was speaking figuratively. If you remove your symbiote and inject yourself with this, it will be as though you never removed it. The Prometheus provides you with the same benefits as the symbiote. Only difference is that Kelno'reem is no longer needed, but most Jaffa have kept the habit of doing it in place of sleeping."

"What are the drawbacks?" Neith asked, staring suspiciously at Harry. "You have only told us of the positive sides. There is always evil accompanying the good."

"Clearly, you have never heard of me before," Harry said, clicking his tongue. "I don't do things half-arsed. The only thing about this serum that could even remotely be considered a drawback is that it's not permanent. It has to be taken every twenty-one days, or it'll stop working."

"So, we would be giving up our dependence on the Goa'uld for a dependence on the Tau'ri?" Ishta asked with a raised eyebrow, which made Harry smirk.

"I knew you'd say that, and no. We have already given the formula to a trusted member of the Jaffa rebellion, and he has overseen the production and distribution of the Prometheus Serum. It would be the same if you agreed to start on it."

Ishta was quiet for a moment. Harry tried to deduce what she was thinking without cheating by using Legilimency, and he had to admit, most Jaffa were insanely difficult to read. Her face was set in the same expression as always, and the only sign that she was thinking on it was that her gaze had drifted down to stare at the table.

"We must discuss this amongst ourselves," Ishta said finally. "Please, join your team outside."

"Good. I need a cigarette, anyway, and I have to check up on my patient."

With that, Harry left the tent, a cigarette already in his mouth before he'd even stepped outside.

–

Harry stood by with the rest of SG-1, listening as Ishta was addressing the rest of the settlement in front of her tent. A cigarette was dangling from his mouth, as per usual, and his normally bored eyes were now flickering here and there, taking in the reactions of the people around him.

"No longer will we need to lose our sisters in battle! No longer will our daughters be dependent on symbiotes! Teal'c has taken the drug. He stands here before you as evidence. I am asking for four volunteers, to travel with me to the Tau'ri, to test its effectiveness."

Several of the female Jaffa began looking around, or looking at the ground, nervously. There were a few quiet murmurs, but no one stepped forward. O'Neill looked around curiously, then appeared to be listening intently for something.

"Is that a pin dropping?"

"I think I heard a fly passing gas over there," Harry said, pointing to a bush to his left.

Mala stepped forward suddenly and looked up at Ishta seriously.

"You must not go."

"Mala, I have made my decision."

"Hak'tyl needs you. You are our leader. I will go in your stead. It is my right as Kindra. You cannot say no."

A small smile appeared on Ishta's face as she stepped down to approach Mala.

"You are brave and true."

"I, too, will go," another Jaffa said as she stepped forward, quickly followed by two others. Ishta smiled lightly again, then looked over to Neith, who was standing next to her sister, Nesa, who Harry had learned was about a day or two away from reaching the Age of Prata. Ishta walked over to them, and looked at Neith, then Nesa. Neith's eyes widened, as Ishta's intentions were clear to everyone watching.

"Nesa is of the age."

"She is a child!" Neith protested.

"If this serum can help-"

"Never!" Neith interrupted. "That you would even consider this is an affront to all of us!"

"Your words are disrespectful," Ishta said calmly, which effectively silenced Neith.

The aggressive Jaffa stared at Ishta for a while longer, then put her hand on Nesa's shoulder and pulled her away, leaving. Ishta closed her eyes briefly and gave a miniscule sigh, then addressed the crowd.

"I cannot force her hand," she claimed, then looked at Mala. "I wish you well."

"Alright," Harry said, clapping his hands together, "let's get this show on the road!"

So, two hours later (which was much too long in Harry's opinion), Harry, O'Neill, Carter, and the four volunteers stepped out of the Gate in the SGC. They were met by Hammond, who was standing at the base of the ramp, waiting for them.

"Dr. Jackson? Teal'c?"

"As Teal'c would say, undomesticated equines couldn't drag him away," O'Neill said with a small smile on his face.

"The leader of the Hak'tyl wanted to learn more about the rebel Jaffa. We figured we could send updates on the progress of the Prometheus Serum treatment to Daniel through the MALP," Carter explained.

"Kin of a PR thing, sir."

Hammond nodded slowly, then turned to the four volunteers.

"I'm General Hammond. Welcome to Earth."

All four of them nodded in acknowledgment to Hammond's greeting, and Harry cleared his throat.

"Well, I guess I'll lead the way to the infirmary, then," he said and pulled back his left sleeve to open his control device. "Aceso."

"_Master,_" came Aceso's voice immediately.

"Bring my Prometheus Serum to the infirmary, and wait for me."

"_Understood, master._"

"This way," Harry told the Jaffa as he walked off, closing the control device and pulling down the sleeve again.

"I was under the impression that you did not have slaves on earth," Mala said curiously, furrowing her brow as they followed the mad scientist.

"Well, Aceso isn't a slave. She's something more akin to a daughter to me, I suppose. She just likes to call me master."

"What do you mean?" another Jaffa asked.

"Aceso isn't human. She's an artificial intelligence that I created to be my assistant," Harry explained, lighting a cigarette and puffing on it a few times, before looking over his shoulder to grin slightly at the Jaffa. "So don't be alarmed when you see someone made of metal wandering around, okay?"

Soon enough, the four Jaffa were in the infirmary, each laying in a bed. They had all had their symbiotes removed, and been injected with Prometheus Serum. Well, everyone except Mala.

"What of my symbiote?" Mala asked as Harry inserted a tube filled with Prometheus Serum in an auto-injector.

"It's safe and sound, for now," Harry explained, looking over his shoulder to make sure Fraiser was keeping an eye on the other Jaffa, just to be safe. "We can keep symbiotes alive for some time, so there's no need to worry about it, should you choose against the serum."

Mala nodded in understanding as Harry injected her with the Prometheus Serum. He put away the auto-injector and observed as the serum spread through her system with his right eye. Then he looked to the side, toward Aceso, who was standing at attention by the doorway.

"Oh, Aceso, is Anise here, by the way?"

"_Yes, master. Would you like me to go and get her for you?_"

"That'd be swell."

Aceso nodded and left the infirmary, at which point Mala looked at Harry.

"Anise?"

"A Tok'ra," Harry explained, picking up a clipboard and jutting down some notes on it. "She has read up on all of my research regarding the Prometheus Serum, so I believe it would be very safe to leave you in her capable hands while I go back to Hak'tyl."

"Why would you go back?"

"I may be a mad scientist, but I'm also a doctor, sometimes," Harry said with a small grin. "And I do have a patient on Hak'tyl. I feel the need to check up on her."

Anise showed up within moments, and Harry was always amazed at how she smiled every time she saw him. Both she and Freya shared that trait.

"Harry, I understand you need me for something?"

"We're introducing the Prometheus Serum to a group of Jaffa," Harry said, gesturing for Mala and the other three. "I have to go off-world to check on a patient, so I need you to keep an eye on these ones."

"I have nothing to do right now, so I would be glad to help," Anise said, bowing her head in greeting to Mala, who bowed her head back.

–

_Journal, August 3rd, 2003,_

_Introduction of the Prometheus Serum on Hak'tyl is going as expected. Once the results shown by the four volunteers were made known to the Jaffa, they figuratively jumped at the chance to free themselves completely from the Goa'uld. It seems that through my actions, which are entirely selfish in that I merely want to improve myself and my skills, I have become something of a savior to most free Jaffa. Unintentionally, naturally, I could care less what they think of me, although being treated with respect is enjoyable, I must admit._

_The Jaffa truly embraced the serum once that aggressive woman named Neith was wounded during an attack to procure a symbiote for her sister. Her own symbiote was injured, and it couldn't heal her. Naturally, she was brought to the SGC, where, after some convincing from her sister, she allowed us to administer the serum._

_This convinced the Jaffa that the serum is as good as a symbiote, if not better._

–

"Happy birthday, Harry!" Carter greeted Harry as he stepped out of the elevator in the SGC to be met with the Major herself.

"Thanks, Sam. Got a gift for me?"

"Not really."

"Good on you," Harry said, relieved, as he lit a cigarette. "At least you're smart enough to know not to give me useless crap."

"You know," Carter said, walking with him through the corridors, "most people would be happy to just get a birthday present."

"I'm not most people," Harry said simply, before giving Carter a strange look. "I thought you'd learned that by now."

"Oh, I have, I was just making an observation," Carter said with a small smile. "So, what birthday plans do you have?"

"No plans. I'm just going to keep working," Harry said, shrugging. "On the agenda is mounting a Gatling Cannon on Frank's shoulder, and finding someone to test a new drug on. You want to volunteer?"

Carter gave him a deadpan look.

"I would never volunteer to have you stick me with a needle, Harry."

"Alas, the problem of having a reputation..." Harry muttered with a sigh. "Ah well, I'm sure I'll find someone."

"I think you're going to enjoy today," Carter said. "Apparently, Teal'c and Bra'tac encountered a new enemy today, and a team was dispatched to come pick them up."

"A new enemy?"

"They weren't very forthcoming with the details, but I'm sure they'll tell you. They should be returning soon."

Speak of the Devil. Just as Carter finished her sentence, the klaxons went of, signaling an incoming wormhole. With a grin appearing on his face, Harry rushed off, eager to see this new enemy. Hopefully, it would be biologically or technologically different from anything he had encountered before, so he'd be able to learn something new.

When he reached the Gate Room, he arrived just in time to see four SGC personnel come through the active wormhole, carrying a black-clad and armored humanoid tied down to a stretcher. Following these four was Teal'c and Bra'tac. Daniel and Hammond were already waiting when Harry and Carter arrived.

"Oh, wow!" Harry said, announcing his presence as the stretcher was loaded onto a gurney. He made his way over and looked at the soldier. "This is certainly going to keep me occupied for at least a day. Teal'c, for being such a stoic guy, you really know how to pick birthday presents!"

"What the hell happened out there?" Hammond asked, ignoring Harry.

"Our intelligence was correct," Teal'c said. "The summit between Ramius and Tilgath did indeed take place. However, when we arrived, Ramius had already fled."

"All those who remained had been slain, including Tilgath," Bra'tac added, looking even more serious than usual.

"By this one man alone?"

"From the way he fought us, I do not doubt it."

"An Ashrak?"

"He was unlike any warrior we have previously encountered," Teal'c explained with a grim look on his face. Harry always had a hard time reading Teal'c, but he got the feeling that the Jaffa was a bit grumpy about struggling with a single enemy.

"Well, obviously you were able to take him down," Daniel said, making a gesture for the body.

"He withstood the brunt of our weapons before finally succumbing," Teal'c said, his expression turning a bit more grim. It was subtle, but Harry caught it.

"Its armor must protect it from energy-based weapons," Carter said as Harry started looking over the black armor. "If that's the case, we could be dealing with an entirely new kind of technology, like Frank's energy-absorbing armor."

"Hm, not quite," Harry said, inspecting it. "Certainly, it is a lot like Frank's armor, but slightly less advanced."

"Meaning, Doctor?" Hammond asked.

"Well, I won't be able to say for sure until I've run some tests, but from what I can tell, there is one major difference," Harry explained as he rapped his knuckles against the armor. "Frank's armor is designed to absorb energy-based attacks and convert it to his own. Kinda like having a battery, and making the enemy recharge it. This armor, however, from what I can tell, has no such properties. My guess is that it absorbs energy, then dissipates it. Like I said, I'll have to run some tests first."

"Run whatever tests you have to, Doctor. Major Carter, I want you to join Dr. Potter in this research."

"With his permission...?" Carter said, sending a questioning look to Harry, who nodded.

"Yeah, sure. Anise will probably help as well."

–

**End of chapter twenty-four! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry studies this new enemy, and gets to test his new drug! ****Stay tuned!**


	25. Chapter 25

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-five! In this chapter, Harry gets to study the Kull warrior, and Daniel's bad luck streak continues!**

–

Harry was glad. His birthday was turning out great! After all, someone never seen before had been brought to the SGC, and Harry was allowed to study it! That was why he was now standing in one of the labs with Carter. The humanoid was on the operating table between them, and Carter was decked out in surgical scrubs, while Harry had simply put on a surgical mask and a pair of surgical gloves.

"His helmet is made up of two pieces," Carter said, examining the helmet, trying to remove it. She grabbed a pair of forceps and a retractor and made to open the helmet, but Harry's hand lashed out and grabbed her wrist before she could.

"Let's not rush this, Sam," he chided, shaking his head. "I want to completely study the outside before we check the inside. Not only for the sake of curiosity, but I also wouldn't be surprised if a warrior this powerful had a booby-trapped armor."

"So, why don't we put him in the MRI first?"

"No, that wouldn't work. The armor would block it," Harry explained, poking and prodding the body here and there, tapping his finger against the armor, and almost crawling over the operating table in order to get a good look at the body from every angle.

"How do you do that?" Carter wanted to know, which made Harry, who was now straddling the body, staring into the eyes of the helmet, look up with a raised eyebrow, silently urging her to elaborate. "Figure these things out, I mean? You can usually figure out a machine's purpose just by looking at it, and you can pretty much build anything out of anything. How do you do it?"

"No idea, to be honest," Harry said, looking back down at the body. He reached up and tapped his finger against his own temple. "I just make connections. It's instinct at this point to do that. Basically, I look over a machine with my artificial eye, then imagine an exploded view of the device. It's hard to explain."

"Your mind is just naturally superior?" Carter guessed with a raised eyebrow, which made Harry look at her with a grin.

"I wasn't going to say it."

"Yes, you were."

"True," Harry admitted as he climbed off the body. "Alright, I can see no booby-traps. Let's open it up."

Carter took the forceps again, and used it and the retractor to open the helmet. There was a hissing sound as the helmet split, and a clear fluid sprayed out of the seam. Harry dipped his finger in the fluid and held it up to his eyes, looking it over while Carter pulled the front of the helmet off the body's face, meeting some resistance from a gel-like substance that stuck the helmet and the face together.

It wasn't too difficult, however, and she managed to pull off the front to reveal the creature's face, which was white, gaunt, and translucent. There was a piece of black equipment still over its nose and mouth, some kind of rebreather, and its eyes were open and a very pale gray.

"Looks like he's fused right into the suit," Carter commented as she felt along the edges of the rebreather, which were sunk into the face.

"A breathing filtration system," Harry said, reaching over and pulling off the breathing unit to reveal the warrior's whole face, which looked hardly more solid than gelatin. Looking it over, Harry gave a whistle, impressed. "Oho, now isn't this interesting?"

"What happened to him?" Carter asked, staring at the man in shock.

"Genetic manipulation of some kind," Harry muttered, poking the flesh of the warrior. "It's flawed, though. Amazingly advanced, but still flawed. Like doing a mediocre job with state-of-the-art equipment."

The warrior's eyes were already open, but Harry still used his fingers to pry open the eyelids even further as he leaned over to stare into them.

"Oh, wow..."

"Wow?" Carter repeated, leaning over to try to see in the warrior's eyes what Harry had just seen.

"This is very, very interesting," the mad scientist said with a grin. "Perfectly engineered eyes. From what I can see... huh... I'll need to run some more tests on this."

"Are you going to tell me what you see, or are you going to continue being vague?"

"Do I frustrate you?" Harry asked, glancing at Carter.

"You have no idea."

"Then I'll continue being vague. Now, let's get this armor off, then put him in the MRI."

So, later found Harry and Carter standing in the briefing room with Hammond, Teal'c, Daniel, and Anise. Behind them was an X-ray showing the warrior's head and neck, a symbiote visible along its spinal column.

"It's a Goa'uld," Carter started off the briefing. "Quite frankly, that's not as shocking as the host."

"How so?" Hammond wanted to know.

"It has an incredibly unusual organ structure."

"What she means is that it has an unusual organ structure by human standards, given that everything is out of proportion," Harry corrected, puffing on his cigarette as he pushed a button on the remote in his hand, causing the X-ray to switch to one of the warrior's upper body. "The heart and lungs have been engineered to be abnormally large, in order to supply enough blood and oxygen to its muscles. Said muscles are five times as dense as a normal human being his size, so you can imagine that he's pretty strong. However, whoever engineered this guy did not have the skills to match the equipment they used. Either that, or they were more focused on getting it done quick, rather than getting it done right. After all, even with the larger heart and lungs, it's still not enough."

"They were counting on the symbiote to sustain the warrior's life," Anise concluded, crossing her arms as she looked over the X-ray.

"An engineered host," Daniel said.

"Yes, but seriously flawed," Anise informed them, walking up to Harry and Carter to stand between them, gesturing for the X-ray. "Given the density of its muscles, the energy consumption would have been too great for even the symbiote to compensate for too long."

"Correct," Harry said, nodding. "During our scans, we found no sign of evident trauma from energy weapons."

"What does that mean?" Hammond asked, while Teal'c perked up.

"The warrior's armor appears to possess some sort of advanced energy absorption technology," Carter said, speaking before Harry could. "If it works the way I think it does-"

"And I know it does," Harry chipped in, only to get a dark look from Carter.

"Anyway, if it works the way we suspect, it wouldn't matter how many staff or zat blasts were fired at it. Nothing would get through."

Hammond's eyes widened at that.

"Are you suggesting that Teal'c and Bra'tac _didn't_ kill this Goa'uld?"

"Yep," Harry said, taking a long drag on his cigarette, deliberately pausing for effect. "From what we can tell, it was on the verge of a pulmonary failure long before it even encountered them."

"It had a heart attack?"

"Yeah. It was already strained. Fighting Teal'c and Bra'tac just gave it the final nudge toward death."

–

The body of the warrior had been moved to the operating table in Harry's lab. It had been stripped of the primary armor, and only had the secondary armor on, which looked like a black body suit. It looked similar to kevlar weave to Harry.

Standing by the table was Daniel, Carter, and Anise, while Harry was sitting in his chair in front of his computer. He brought up some data and tapped the screen, his half-smoked cigarette hanging from his mouth.

"Look at this. Its cellular structure is less than three weeks old. It's organic, but was without a doubt manufactured in a lab."

"Well, we know the Goa'uld have been trying to physically perfect a host that would be superior to humans," Carter reasoned, but Harry shook his head.

"This thing may be strong, but superior to humans? No way."

"And traditionally, the Goa'uld are also somewhat vain about their appearance," Daniel added.

"This warrior is designed to withstand pain and injury. No doubt, it's made to hit hard and fast, and given how the creator hasn't even bothered taking care of the longevity issue, my guess is that it's supposed to be a foot soldier of some kind. Another interesting thing is that this creature wasn't 'born alive,' if one can use those words."

Anise's eyes widened at that as she looked from Harry to the warrior, then back again.

"Harry, are you suggesting that this creature was brought to life upon reaching its mature state?"

"Yes, it was grown, and then born, figuratively speaking."

"Frankenstein's monster," Daniel commented, only to get a sour look from Harry.

"I understand how, given the technology available in that century, Frankenstein's monster would be a good comparison to this creature in your mind, but please, do not insult it by comparing this to a pile of stitched together body parts out loud."

Daniel blinked at that, then looked at Harry strangely.

"You know, you pick the strangest things to get offended by..."

"Anyway, how do you know that?" Carter asked, getting the conversation back on track before Harry could speak.

"Well, my scanner picked up an energy signature within its cells. It's pretty unique, and a lot stronger, but still very similar to the residual effects left by the use of a sarcophagus."

"How do you know?" Carter asked. "You haven't studied that."

Harry just jutted his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at Anise.

"Could it give life to something that wasn't alive in the first place?" Daniel asked, furrowing his brow.

"No," Anise answered for Harry. "A sarcophagus is designed to boost health and longevity, heal, or revive someone terminally injured. They are nowhere near powerful enough to animate non-living cellular matter."

"Then what could have?" Carter asked.

"My guess, an Ancient device," Harry said, putting out his cigarette in his overly full ashtray. "I mean, not even the Asgard have technology capable of giving life like this..."

"That is plausible," Anise said as she rubbed her chin in thought. "Thousands of years ago, a Goa'uld found a device originally created by the Ancients. He determined its primary purpose was to heal. But it was so powerful, its effects on human hosts ultimately proved devastating. However, after much research and experimentation, the Goa'uld was able to use the technology to create the first sarcophagus."

"Obviously, he wasn't able to eliminate all of its negative side effects," Daniel commented unnecessarily.

"The Tok'ra have long sought this device in the hope of using it to perfect the sarcophagus technology, so that we could all benefit from it. Now, it may be the key to fighting this new warrior."

Harry coughed loudly, drawing everyone's attention to him.

"That is, on the slim chance that Harry does not manage to find an effective means of combating it."

"Well, I think the best thing to do would be to not put all our eggs in one basket," Daniel quipped. "So, why don't you tell us how the device could help?"

"With the device, we may be able to devise a weapon to counteract this life-giving energy."

"Who was the first Goa'uld to find the device?"

"His name was Telchak."

"Telchak," Daniel repeated, perking up in surprise. He swiftly spun around and gestured for everyone to follow him as he left the lab. Harry was the only one who didn't follow.

"I'm amazed," Harry said into the silence. "I didn't think you were capable of staying quiet for so long."

"_I was under the impression that you wanted their full attention, master,_" Frank spoke, standing in the corner of the lab. Harry blinked and looked over his shoulder at him.

"You sound disappointed."

"_Well, master, it should be understandable,_" Frank said, gesturing for the Gatling Cannon on one of the workbenches. "_You have been planning on replacing my shoulder-mounted cannon with a Gatling Cannon, and now we find out that there is an enemy out there upon whom it would not work. Surely, you can understand my frustration?_"

"I understand perfectly," Harry said, narrowing his eyes at the Gatling Cannon. "Hm... You know, maybe if I..."

"_Master?_"

"Let me run some more tests on the armor. I may be able to come up with something that should bypass it."

"_Thank you, master. You certainly know how to make this unit's circuits spark in anticipation._"

–

It was pretty late the next day when Harry rolled across his lab to answer the ringing phone, holding it to his ear with his shoulder while he tinkered with a device in his hands.

"Potter."

"_Harry, it's Sam._"

"Oh, hey, Sam. Need anything?"

"_Yeah, have you studied the warrior any further?_"

"Naturally, why?"

"_Well, we could use your opinion on something,_" Carter said as Harry turned up the power in the device in his hand.

"And that opinion regards the- Ow! Son of a mother hubbering...!" The device dropped into Harry's lap as it gave him an incredible shock, which numbed his whole right arm.

"_What's wrong?_" Carter asked, sounding concerned.

"Oh, nothing, just playing around with a supercharged plasma generator. So, if there's a big boom that wipes out the SGC, you'll know who to blame in the afterlife. So, what do you need?"

Carter was quiet for a while, and Harry knew her well enough to know that she was torn between professional curiosity, righteous anger at him endangering human lives, and her desire to know whatever she wanted to know about the warrior. Finally, she seemed to decide on the latter.

"_We've reached the conclusion that we have to capture one of these warriors alive,_" she said, but she sounded angry. Understandable, of course, but Harry couldn't be bothered to care. "_We need to find out about any weak spots you can find in the armor._"

"Ah, well, the armor is very strong. It could withstand even the strongest armor-piercing weapons we have, and can absorb energy weapon fire. I see two ways to get through the armor."

"_And those are?_"

"The first is to use energy weapons, but that one would be hard."

"_But the armor absorbs it._"

"Exactly. This is where it differs from my energy-absorbing armor design," Harry explained, shaking his right arm, which was starting to get back feeling. "See, my preliminary theory was correct. This armor merely absorbs energy and dissipates it. However, the energy doesn't dissipate very quickly, which means that it can be overheated, so to speak, like filling up a balloon with too much water. But the amount of energy this armor is capable of retaining before overheating, and given that it gradually dissipates what it absorbs... You'd have to bombard him with a Ha'tak to do it."

"_So, that option is out. What's the second option?_" Carter asked, which made Harry grin as he fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with his left hand.

"The secondary layer of armor, which possesses the majority of energy-absorbing qualities, is made up of a close-knit fiber."

"_Like kevlar?_"

"Indeed. So, something small and sharp could penetrate it. Like a needle."

"_Are you thinking about tranquilizing darts?_"

"Don't make yourself sound stupider than you are, Sam, you're insulting your own formidable intelligence."

"_Did you... just manage to include a compliment in an insult?_"

"Quite possibly. Anyway, tranquilizers wouldn't work. They've been engineered to withstand it. And a too great a dose would only speed up a pulmonary failure."

"_So, what do you suggest we do?_"

Harry hummed to himself.

"Give me a few seconds to think..." he muttered as he looked around his lab, his eyes landing on a stand holding twenty vials filled with different liquids. "Hm... I got an idea. You know that new drug I wanted to test?"

"_Yeah? You want to test it on the warrior?_"

"Yeah. Call a briefing. I'll inform you there."

A briefing was called, and Harry was soon standing in front of Bra'tac, Teal'c, Hammond, O'Neill, and Carter (Daniel had gone to Honduras to find Telchak's device). He was holding up a vial filled with a clear, almost blueish liquid.

"This is my latest creation, something I call the Superhuman Drug."

Immediately, O'Neill's hand went up.

"Um, this is a briefing to figure out what we're going to capture that thing with, right? So, why would we use something called a 'Superhuman Drug'?"

"If you would let me finish..." Harry muttered, giving O'Neill a stern look, which made the Colonel cough uncomfortable, before gesturing for Harry to go on. "Anyway, no matter where you are, you will always hear masters of pretty much any kind of close-quarter combat, which I'm sure Bra'tac can attest to, claim that there are moments when weapons clash, where it seems almost as though the weapons stop for a moment."

"You are correct," Bra'tac said, nodding. "I have experienced this sensation on many occasions in my life."

"Well, this is caused by the elongation of temporal perception. It's a rare sort of phenomenon that occurs when your sense of time is stretched to its utmost limits," Harry explained, shaking the vial. "This is a drug that forcibly induces that state. In other words, it allows anyone to easily gain superhuman senses. So, if this drug is used, bullets will appear to be stopped, even to an infant's eyes. The amazing thing about this drug is that, while the heightening of a master's senses takes place in the instant the weapons clash, this can amplify that effect hundreds, thousands, or even trillions times over. For effective use, a single droplet would need to be diluted two hundred and fifty thousand times. But we're going to inject the warrior with the undiluted drug."

"I still don't get it," O'Neill claimed, shrugging.

"It's simple. If hit with the diluted drug, everything around the warrior would appear sluggish and dull. If hit with the diluted formula, a second would feel like a hundred years. However, since his body, while formidable, isn't superhuman, it will trail an incredible distance behind his senses. In essence, the effects are reversed. If, for example, the warrior sees a rock flying toward him, and he tries to raise his hand to catch it, the hand would take as long to rise, as it would take for him to perceive the rock reaching him."

"You lost me. In English, please?" O'Neill urged.

"His hand would take a hundred years to rise."

Everyone's eyes widened at that.

"So, we can hit him with the drug, and he would become too slow to even react to us bringing him back?" Carter concluded, to which Harry nodded.

"How long would the effects last?" Hammond wanted to know.

"Depends on how great a dose he's hit with. I recommend giving him a large dose, one that would last for at least two days."

"But we have to interrogate him. That's the biggest reason why we need to bring him in," Carter said, which made Harry scoff.

"We can just use my MedPenis for that."

"It could work, sir," Carter decided, looking to Hammond. "A fine-tipped trinium dart in a dart gun should be enough."

"When you bring him back, I'll hook him up to the MedPenis. In the meantime, I will be trying to finish my latest weapon for Frank."

Hammond nodded, then looked to O'Neill.

"Colonel, you have a go."

–

Harry smiled to himself as he stared at his latest modification. What was once a Ma'Tok Gatling Cannon was now a Gatling Plasma Cannon. Having utilized the joint research with the Asgard, Harry had managed to create a plasma battery, which took the place of the liquid Naquadah in the Gatling Cannon. The fire-rate was the same, only now it fired plasma blasts, which were sure to overload the energy-absorbing armor of Anubis' new warriors.

The Gatling Plasma Cannon was now fitted on Frank's shoulder in place of the cannon that had previously been there. Frank was observing as it turned on its mount.

"_Once more, master, you exceed my expectations. Excellent work. I am very pleased, and very honored, that you have graced me with such a powerful weapon._"

"Now, take care how much you use that thing. The energy consumption is tripled, after all," Harry advised.

"Your inventive mind is truly extraordinary," the female in his lab spoke, a soft smile on her face.

"So, you've been standing there in silence for the last half hour," Harry said, turning to her and crossing his arms as he puffed on his cigarette. "Did you want something, or are you just going to process just how randy the sight of me in a lab coat makes you in silence, Sujanha?"

The Asgard woman gave a chuckle that was as soft as her smile.

"I did not specifically want anything at the moment. I am not sure why I came. I suppose I enjoy your company."

Harry's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Really?"

"_Really?_" Frank parroted, also sounding surprised.

"You underestimate how appealing your personality is to some people, Harry," Sujanha said, smiling still.

"Well, yeah, but you're an Asgard," Harry said, scratching his head in confusion. "I never took you for the type of person who could enjoy my company."

"I did not simply spend all that time doing research with you enduring your company for the sake of progress. I have always believed that order cannot exist without at least a small amount of chaos. Your personality is a type of controlled chaos, which has a certain appeal to me."

"Huh..."

"Now, would you care to tell me about this creature?" Sujanha asked, gesturing for the dead warrior still on the operating table, encased in an Asgard stasis field to keep the body from decaying.

"A creation of Anubis, we suspect," Harry said. "It's been grown into this, and then given life. It also wore an armor that could absorb blasts from energy weapons."

"Given life?" Sujanha asked, her eyes widening. "How is that possible?"

"Well, Anubis does have a lot of Ancient knowledge, so it's no surprise that he could have knowledge regarding the machine that gave birth to the sarcophagus. These warriors are incredibly flawed, however. If you'd care to find out more, it's all there," Harry said, jutting his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at what looked like his control device, which was on the workbench behind him. This wasn't it, however, as his control device was still on his arm. The device behind him was a small laptop, which he put down notes in, both in English, and in the Asgardian language.

"Oh, thank you," Sujanha said as she picked up the laptop and opened it. As she read, she off-handedly commented, "Your AI's personality is curious as ever. I would have thought that you would reprogram him, or at least mute him, after the last time you visited Othala."

"Is Freyr still upset?" Harry asked curiously, to which Sujanha nodded. "That guy needs to learn to let things go."

"Harry, if an hostile AI suddenly appeared in your dwelling, insulted you, then blew out three walls, you would have an equally hard time, as you say, 'letting it go.'"

"Well, obviously, but I'm me, and Freyr is not."

Sujanha chuckled softly, not taking her eyes off the laptop.

"You have a very refreshing personality, Harry. Please, try not to change, ever. I find your impeccable logic amusing."

Klaxons went off suddenly, making all three occupants of the lab look up curiously.

"I really hope that's Carter coming back with the live specimen."

"You have endeavored to capture one of these warriors alive?"

"Yeah. Frank wasn't too happy to hear that, but my guess is that there are many more of them for him to kill," Harry said as he moved toward the door. "So, are you staying long?"

"Freyr will not be returning to pick me up for three hours."

"Then, you wanna come with me?"

"I would enjoy watching you work, so it would be my pleasure."

The two left Harry's lab, and made their way to lab five, where Harry's MEDPNIS had already been set up. Fastened to the wall by metal bands around its limbs and neck was one of the warriors, its hard armor stripped, leaving it in only its cloth armor. It was standing perfectly still, not even twitching its head. Teal'c and Bra'tac were already in the room as well, observing the warrior.

"Harry Potter," Teal'c greeted with a bow of his head. He made to speak, but stopped upon seeing the person accompanying Harry.

"Oh, Teal'c, Bra'tac, this is Sujanha, an Asgard. She dropped in for a little visit."

Both Teal'c and Bra'tac bowed in greeting to Sujanha, who bowed back with a soft smile on her face.

"It is a true honor," Bra'tac said.

"Likewise, Master Bra'tac. Your struggle for freedom is very admirable. My only regret is that not more Jaffa can see the truth."

"As it is with me."

"Yes, small talk is nice, but..." Harry trailed off and gestured for the warrior.

"Your drug is still in effect, Harry Potter," Teal'c said.

"How long did it take?"

"It happened in moments," Bra'tac said, sounding impressed. "No more than a few seconds passed after he was hit before he stopped completely."

"Alright, well, I guess it's time for me to get to work."

Harry's MEDPNIS had been greatly upgraded lately. It was now fitted with a holographic projector, and all one needed to decode memories was two small discs that were to be attached to the subject's temples. The MEDPNIS itself looked like a silvery briefcase.

Harry opened up the MEDPNIS and booted it up, then took the two small decoders and walked up to the still warrior, attaching them to his temples.

"There we go. Let's get started."

–

Later found Harry standing in front of the screen in the briefing room, which showed a star map and patterns being drawn through it, zeroing in on a star system and showing the Gate address. Next to the star map was a full-body image of the warrior.

"They're called Kull warriors," Harry started off his briefing to Carter, O'Neill, Teal'c, Bra'tac, Anise, Sujanha, and Jacob Carter. "They hail from a planet known among the Goa'uld and the Tok'ra as Tartarus. It's a seemingly unoccupied planet on the edge of Goa'uld-controlled space."

"The Tok'ra are currently trying to get as close as they can to assess any defenses that might be there," Jacob informed them.

"I am familiar with the planet," Sujanha said. "It is barren, sustaining no life. It would be perfect to hide a secret lab."

"Unfortunately, we can't exactly launch an assault on the place," Harry said, pushing a button on his control device, removing the star map and Kull warrior from the screen, to replace them with a 3D model of a Stargate, which was slowly revolving, covered in a yellowy-orange force field, along with a 3D model of what might have passed for a Goa'uld car engine, with a three-pronged antenna sticking out of it.

"The Stargate is protected by a powerful force field, which works much like our iris. Only Kull warriors can pass through it, due to the energy-absorbing properties of their armor. There is also a powerful sensor array, which is able to detect incoming ships. Unfortunately, the Kull warriors are bred to be dim. They don't have the specs of the array, so I can't tell immediately just how powerful it is. What is known for sure is that no Goa'uld cloaking technology could possibly hide from it."

"And what of your cloak, Harry?" Sujanha asked, tilting her head curiously. "Is it not powerful enough?"

"There is only one way to find out."

Harry was about to elaborate, but just then Hammond entered from his office, looking grim as he faced everyone.

"Sir?" Carter prodded hesitantly.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news. I just received a communique from the State Department in Washington. It appears that Daniel Jackson and Dr. Lee have been kidnapped. Our best guess is they've crossed the border into Nicaragua. However, as of this moment, we have no idea where they are."

All member's of SG-1 went wide-eyed at that, and shared concerned looks.

–

**End of chapter twenty-five! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry and Frank assault Anubis' lab! ****Stay tuned!**


	26. Chapter 26

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-six! In this chapter, Harry and Frank infiltrate Anubis' base, some episodes are skipped, and a journalist comes to the SGC to film a documentary!**

–

"Colonel O'Neill has gone to rescue Daniel."

"Uh-huh, I figured he would," Harry said to Carter as he stood in his lab, covering Frank's endo-skeleton with his armor plating. "O'Neill isn't the type to sit around twiddling his thumbs when a friend is in danger."

"But you are?"

"Of course not? Didn't you see how I reacted when Thor was in trouble?" Harry muttered, fitting the armor on Frank's legs.

"But you're not doing that now."

Harry sighed at that and turned to Carter, lighting a cigarette.

"Sam, you know I have a generally low opinion of people-"

"Understatement of the year."

"Hrhm... Anyway, despite my low opinion of people, I am good at seeing people's strengths. That's why I knew what O'Neill would do, and because I know that's one of his strengths, I know that I don't need to help there. Daniel will come back safely, I know that. Therefore, I'm putting my focus on our job, which is to infiltrate Anubis' base."

"And you have a plan for that?" Carter asked after a moment of silence, having no doubt been stunned by Harry's proclamation.

"Of course. When don't I have a plan for something?" Harry said with a scoff as he turned back to Frank and continued fitting his armor.

"Care to share?"

"I have made some upgrades to Frank's armor. It holds some of the energy-absorbing properties of the Kull armor now," Harry explained, rapping his knuckles against the armor on Frank's 'shoulder'. "It will allow him to get through the force field surrounding Anubis' Gate with ease. He and I will step through and wreak some havoc after a bit of reconnaissance."

"Wait," Carter said, furrowing her brow. "How are you going to get through?"

Harry grinned and turned to her, opening his coat to show that the inside was lined with the same type of material as the cloth armor of the Kull warrior.

"This is how," he said, gesturing for the lining. "Of course, I had to increase the energy output to make sure the coat itself was protected as well. Wouldn't do for it to get holes in it if someone shot it, right?"

Carter looked around, taking in all the things Harry had assembled for the mission.

"Harry, the speed with which you work is staggering..."

"Yeah, well, I'm motivated," Harry said with a smile, before snapping his fingers. "That reminds me."

He walked over to one of his workbenches, and picked up a plasma generator, the same type as the one installed in Frank's shoulder cannon. He walked back over to Frank, and pushed the generator into a slot in the center of Frank's chest.

"There we go. How is it, Frank?"

Frank, who had been silent up until now, raised his hands to look at the newly installed weapons on his forearms, which looked like the repeating weapons the Kull warriors had on their arms.

"_Plasma beam weapons are armed and very dangerous, master. I am pleased that you installed them before we headed into combat. It would have been a bother if you installed them during a dull period of boring peace._"

"Wait, plasma beams?" Carter asked incredulously. "As in the kind of weapons you have on your ship?"

"Smaller version, naturally, but yes."

"_Will you be using the Incinerator, master?_"

"Yeah, I probably will," Harry said, humming to himself. "It seems like as good a time as any to test it properly."

"I'm feeling a bit left out here," Carter muttered. "What is the Incinerator?"

"A weapon I've been working on for a while now," Harry said, walking over to his desk and opening the larger bottom drawer, taking out a metal briefcase and setting it down on the desk. He opened it, to reveal a rather large revolver. The grip and trigger were that of a Colt 1851 Navy revolver, with a stitched silver lightning bolt inlaid in the grip. The cylinder was rather blocky, and might have looked like a normal, if somewhat blocky, cylinder, if it wasn't for the pale blue light shining from each block that would normally have held a bullet. The barrel was very large, with an equally large attachment under it, on the side of which was a slot that glowed pale blue. Under the attachment was a smaller plasma generator, which fed into the attachment. On top of the barrel was a half-inch thick plate that hugged the barrel. The whole revolver, save for the plasma generator, the grip, trigger, trigger guard, and hammer, was black, while the grip was made of lacquered wood, and the plasma generator, the trigger, trigger guard, and hammer were rather silvery.

"Oh, wow... What the hell is that?" Carter asked, her eyes wide as she stared at the revolver.

"It's a plasma pistol," Harry said, setting the revolver down on his desk. "I haven't come up with an official name for it yet, but Frank has taken to calling it 'the Incinerator.'"

"Why, though?"

"_Oh, fleshy organic with regular bleeding,_" Frank muttered, shaking his head ruefully. "_If you had seen the destructive power behind that plasma pistol, you would not be asking such a silly question._"

Carter looked miffed at being called a fleshy organic with regular bleeding, but then she perked up, appearing to be coming up with an idea.

"Hey, Harry, why didn't we just send in Frank to rescue Daniel and Dr. Lee?"

"Because they would without a doubt be heavily guarded," Harry said simply, fishing a holster out of another drawer and putting the Incinerator in it, before clipping it onto the back of his belt. "And due to Frank's prime directive, he can't harm people from earth, so it would be strictly rescue, and you know how cranky Frank gets when he has to leave people alive."

"Well... I suppose that's true..." Carter muttered, looking over Frank, who was rotating the Gatling Plasma Cannon on his shoulder, making sure the targeting computer was functioning properly. "So, when do you think you'll be ready?"

"I have already informed Hammond that Frank and I will be ready to go at oh-eight hundred hours tomorrow."

–

Right on schedule, the Stargate activated at exactly eight in the morning the next day. Harry and Frank were standing at the bottom of the ramp, the mad scientist fiddling with his plasma revolver, while Frank was standing stock still, staring fixedly at the Stargate.

"_Are you ready, Doctor?_" came Hammond's voice from the control room. Harry nodded.

"Just about, General, just give me a second," he said, turning a dial on the side of the plasma generator, which made the lights on the cylinder glow even brighter. "Alright, I'm ready," he announced as he holstered the revolver behind his back.

"Then you have a go. God speed."

Harry nodded to Frank, and then both of them jogged up the ramp, picking up speed and breaking into a full run just before they ran into the event horizon.

When they came through on the other side, they found themselves on a somewhat narrow bridge connecting the small platform the Stargate was on to the base, which appeared to have been built into the rocky canyon wall. Below them, at the bottom of the canyon, was nothing by bubbling lava.

The entrance to the base was guarded by two Kull warriors, who immediately raised their arms to fire upon seeing the intruders. Frank raised his own arms and fired two plasma beams at one of the warriors, pushing him back into the wall with the force, while Harry charged at the other Kull warrior. Upon reaching it, Harry ducked under a burst of weapons fire from the Kull, and came up with a left uppercut that knocked his helmet off. He spun once, his hand diving into his coat and pulling his revolver to aim at the Kull warrior's uncovered face.

Then he fired.

The bright blue blast of plasma completely incinerated the Kull warrior's head, leaving only the cloth armor that had once covered it intact.

Meanwhile, the Kull warrior Frank was pelting with plasma beams had dropped to its kness, struggling to raise its arms to fire. A grunt was heard coming from it just as the plasma beams punched right through the armor and blasted out of its back. Frank ceased fire and watched at the Kull dropped to the ground, unmoving.

"_Your theory was indeed correct, master,_" Frank said with a tone of obvious approval. "_A persistent barrage of plasma beams, even ones as small as these, was capable of overheating the energy-absorbing properties of the Kull armor._"

"Nothing like a field test to put a smile on your face, eh, Frank?" Harry asked with a grin, to which Frank responded with a dull, monotone laugh.

"_Master, had I a mouth, I would surely be sporting a grin that would put yours to shame._"

"I'm sure," Harry said, chuckling as he fished out a cigarette and lit it with a snap of his fingers. "Alright, now that we're here, time to come up with a plan..."

"_Master, are we to initiate full stealth mode?_"

"Not quite full stealth mode, Frank," Harry said as he holstered his revolver and held up his hand, watching as three spinning, ethereal blades flickered in and out of view over it. "Switch to melee only, cloak on. Until I get my hands on Anubis' research, we will raise no alarms."

"_Understood, master,_" Frank said, the blades in his forearms extending as the cannon on his shoulder spun to point backward, then tipped downward to point down at the floor. He faded from view as Harry activated the cloak on his control device, fading from view as well.

With that, they opened the doors and made their way inside.

They moved through the hallways of the base with complete silence, which amazed Harry, considering Frank's weight. He was very light on his feet when he really wanted to, it seemed.

Thanks to both of them possessing cloak-sight, they could see each other, so when they found a Kull warrior coming toward them on patrol, Frank saw Harry make a hand sign. Nodding, the AI made his way toward the Kull warrior.

If anyone had been watching, they would have been shocked to see the Kull stop suddenly, giving off a gurgling sound as he was slowly raised into the air. The neck of the Kull warrior slowly contracted, and a crunch reverberated through the corridor as the Kull stopped struggling.

Frank dropped the Kull to the ground and nodded to Harry, who nodded back as they continued down the hallway. Since they really didn't care in the long run if an alarm was raised, they left the body there.

They entered a dimly lit lab with a row special full-body chair bathed in blue light in front of a console. Harry grinned widely as he dropped his cloak.

"My, my, I guess we got the right room immediately," he said happily as he walked up to the console, while the still cloaked Frank guarded the door.

"_Will you be going through the collected data on the Kull warriors right now, master?_" Frank asked, and Harry shook his head and reached up, taking a small, thin Asgard crystal out of the bolt device on the right side of his head and attaching it to the console.

"No time for that, Frank. I'll just download it all and go through it later."

"_Understood, master. I shall remain on guard until the download is complete._"

The two stood in silence for a while, Harry with his eyes closed, and Frank with his eyes peeled on the doorway. Then, Harry's eyes snapped open when the download finished, and he picked up the crystal again and slid it into the empty slot in his bolt device.

"Alright, let's keep looking around."

"_Yes, master._"

Harry activated his cloak, and the two left the lab again.

They proceeded through the corridors, Frank taking out three more Kull warriors, which made Harry wonder just how many of them Anubis had. Using logic, he concluded that since Anubis was a Goa'uld, he surely had a love of overkill, so he without a doubt had many, many, _many_ Kull warriors.

The duo slipped into another laboratory, this one much larger than the first. This too was dimly lit, but was differently decorated. There were many devices like stairs, which Harry immediately recognized as symbiote holding tanks, in the room. In fact, Harry counted five. Given that each tank could hold over a hundred symbiotes, and given that they were all empty, Harry figured that Anubis had at least five hundred Kull warriors.

"_Master,_" Frank spoke up, making Harry turn around, his eyes widening when he saw what Frank was looking at.

In the back of the lab was another tank, this one larger than the others. In the tank was a Goa'uld symbiote. It was different from a normal one, half its body being attached to a very large sack, which Harry knew, from reports, contained young symbiotes until they were ready for birth.

"A queen," Harry said, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "Well, well, let's see what we have here..."

Harry walked up to the console the queen tank was perched on and started pressing buttons.

Frank stared at Harry for a moment, then said, "_You look intrigued, master._"

"I am. This queen must be in league with Anubis, or something," Harry said with a hum. "She's just about ready to spawn, and yet her brainwave pattern is minimal."

"_So her genetic memory will not be transferred to her spawn. She will be spawning fearless, unintelligent symbiotes, perfect for making mindless foot soldiers,_" Frank concluded, an impressed whistle sounding from his voice-speaker.

"Impressive, isn't it? Anubis will be free to imprint them however he sees fit. Perfect soldiers; deadly, fearless, unquestioning loyalty..."

Harry slid the crystal out of his bolt device again and attached it to the console, then started up another download.

While the data was downloading, Harry reached into one of his pockets, fishing out a handful of keron blocks and putting together another brick-like bomb.

"_Master?_" Frank questioned as Harry attached a minor AI to the bomb, then attached the whole thing to the underside of the console.

"This queen can't spawn again, and Anubis should be slowed down as much as possible," Harry explained, removing the crystal and putting it back in his bolt device. "Alright, let's continue."

The mad duo activated their cloaks again and left the spawning chamber. Surprisingly, they encountered no more Kull warriors as they made through the maze of corridors, which led Harry to believe that they had all been gathered together in a single area of the base.

After about five minutes of turning left and right, passing labs and storage rooms, they finally reached a spot that was a bit different.

It was without a doubt Anubis' command area, judging by the large command chair against the wall, facing a balcony that looked over a much, much larger room. They moved over to the balcony and looked down, to see many hundreds of Kull warriors stepping into formation below them.

Anubis himself stood on a floating platform, hovering a good thirty feet above the Kull warriors, looking down at them.

"You are all my children," he announced, sounding very pleased. "Kull warriors... You are the instruments of my conquest."

The Kull all dropped into a kneeling position and started chanting, "Hail Anubis!"

"Oh, wow..." Harry said as he dropped his cloak, looking over the gathered army. "That's a lot of Kull..."

"I count seven hundred and sixty-three, master," Frank said, sounding excited.

"Foo-"

The Goa'uld who had approached them from behind was interrupted when Harry, without looking, pulled his revolver and fired backward, blowing his head clean off.

The sound of the revolver was enough to alert the base, apparently, as an alarm began blaring loudly, and Anubis started barking orders to the Kull.

"Oh, dear me," Harry said, no regret whatsoever in his voice. "It would seem that I triggered an alarm."

"_Master, you were perfectly capable of incinerating that meatbag soundlessly,_" Frank commented. "_Why did you see fit to trigger the alarm?_"

"Well, Frank, it's been a while since you've seen some action. I thought that you might enjoy fighting your way out of this place."

"_Oh, master..._" Frank said, raising his hand to press it against his chest, where his heart would have been had he been human. "_You most certainly know exactly what to say to make this unit feel better._"

Harry laughed as he turned back toward the balcony, looking down to see the Kull warriors dispersing, off to converge on their location, no doubt. Meanwhile, Anubis was still standing on his platform, and he was looking up at him with a posture that screamed dissatisfaction.

"Hey, Frank, go play a bit with the Kull, then wait for me at the Gate. I'm going to go have a chat with Anubis."

"_Understood, master,_" Frank said, nodding, before jogging off. Harry, meanwhile, climbed onto the railing, crouched down, then jumped, clearing the gap between the balcony and Anubis' platform easily.

He landed in front of Anubis, who showed his nervousness by backing up two steps. He without a doubt remembered his beatdown at Harry's hands before.

"Hello," Harry said pleasantly, leaning back against the railing of the platform.

"You will pay dearly for this," Anubis promised, but Harry just waved him off.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said nonchalantly. "So, listen, it would be amazing if you answered a few of my questions regarding your semi-Ascended state."

"You are a bigger fool than I thought if you would even think that I would answer any of your questions," Anubis growled out. His hand twitched, but Harry had already raised his hand.

"Ah, don't do that. Unless, of course, you want me to shock you again."

"I will still not tell you anything."

"Oh, but you're already telling me plenty," Harry said with a smirk. "See, I can study things without even touching them. For example, I can tell that the source of this force field giving you physical form is located at your chest. I can tell that it's powered by something other than liquid Naquadah, which makes me curious as to what it is. And by how you haven't done anything yet, I can tell that the last time wasn't just you being taken off-guard. You actually can't use any of the recorded powers of an Ancient. Either that, or you're bound by some kind of rules set down by the other Ascended. So, while you have knowledge you gained up there, you can't do everything an Ascended can."

"Did you come to gloat about how you can unravel my secrets?" Anubis growled, which made Harry laugh.

"That would be amusing, I admit, but no. I only came here to satisfy my curiosity. And to let Frank play with your new Kull warriors in peace. He do so loves bloodshed. This new armor you've created is formidable, but still flawed. I suggest you work on it a bit."

"You are giving me... _advice_?" Anubis asked in obvious surprise. "Why have you not attempted to kill me?"

"Would I be able to?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. When Anubis didn't respond, he chuckled. "So, since I can't kill you, and you definitely can't kill me, I thought we could have some pleasant conversation while Frank plays. I have a question for you, actually."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, how did you manage to figure out how to get a queen to spawn mindless symbiotes?" Harry asked curiously.

"I drew the information on that from the mind of your Jonas Quinn."

"Ah," Harry said, snapping his fingers. "That queen Egeria."

"If you are so insistent on conversation, allow me to ask a question in return."

"Shoot," Harry said, crossing his arms and looking at Anubis with an expression like he was giving him his undivided attention.

"You are not of planet earth, are you?"

"Yes, I am. Well, not anymore. I'm an official citizen of Othala. But I was born and... er... let's call it raised... on earth."

"You possess an intellect and skills unlike any human I have seen yet."

"Oh, well, the answer to why that is is a simple one."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I'm me," Harry said simply, then opened his control device and pushed a button.

The entire base was rocked by a massive explosion. Then, Harry waved and muttered a "Ta," before getting enveloped in a white light.

When the light cleared, Harry was standing on the bridge of the Sujan with Frank, who had also been beamed on board.

"Thank you, Aceso. No problems finding the place?"

"_None, master._"

"What's the matter, Frank?" Harry asked as he sat down in the pilot seat, while Frank sat in the co-pilot seat. "You look depressed."

"_Master, I love killing, so do not take this as a statement that I no longer wish to fight,_" Frank said, lowering his head. "_I did not find much amusement killing the Kull warriors, master... In order to overload the Kull armor, I had to use so much power that my plasma beams cauterized the wounds when they broke through. There was no bloodshed, master... I am greatly disappointed._"

Harry laughed as he started putting in coordinates.

"Well, look on the bright side, Frank, at least you got to _kill_ something."

"_That is very true, master. You always know what to say to cheer me up._"

"_Master, you appear to have put in the coordinates for Othala._"

"So I have, Aceso," Harry said, activating a com crystal, which was linked to one he had given to Carter. "Sam?"

There was a moment of silence, before Harry tried again.

"Oh, Saaaam? Sam? Sam! Press your fingers against the sides of the damn crystal!"

"_Harry?_" came Carter's voice immediately afterward, which made him chuckle. "_Why didn't you tell me how to work the crystal when you gave it to me?_"

"Eh, I just felt you might want to exercise your brain a bit," Harry said with a shrug, even though Carter couldn't see it. "Hey, listen, you can handle being in charge of making sure the systems run flawlessly during the maiden voyage of the Prometheus, right?"

He could almost hear Carter gaping.

"_What, you're not going along?_"

"No, I figured I could use this time to head to Othala and get all my equipment set up in the Sujan. I've taken care of Anubis' base, by the way. Brief you when I get back. But you've read up on all of Prometheus' systems, right?"

"_Of course. Are you sure you can trust me to do a good job?_"

"There's no one else on earth I could trust with this. So be honored," Harry said with a grin. "Have fun out there! Tell Hammond I'll be back soon."

"_For clarification, how soon is 'soon'?_"

"Soon," Harry said simply, then deactivated the com crystal. "Alright, to Othala!"

–

It was no less than two months later that Harry was sitting in the Sujan with Carter in the co-pilot seat. This was the first time she had actually went on a flight with him. The other three times she had been on the ship was when it was landed.

Harry looked to Carter, who was moving crystals here and there. She had long since figured out all the commands and everything.

"So, I heard I've missed quite a bit," he commented, smiling at Carter. "I bet you wished I was there."

"Is that surprising?" Carter asked. "I mean, if you had been in Kelowna, you probably would have made some last-minute adjustments to the drill that would have allowed us to make our way down without any difficulties whatsoever."

"That's true, I would have," Harry said without a trace of modesty in his voice.

"You probably would have been able to figure out Daniel's problem with Osiris much sooner than we did, then you would have located her, and incapacitated her with no problem."

Harry grinned at that as he looked to Carter again.

"You know, it's really refreshing when I'm not the only one who has complete and utter faith in myself."

"_I am insulted master._"

"Not the only organic, I mean, Aceso," Harry corrected himself.

Carter smirked at Harry, then looked back out the cockpit and said, "By the way, we're going to have to make this quick."

"Huh?"

"General Hammond didn't tell you because he probably thought that you wouldn't want to be part of it, but a group of people are coming to the SGC soon to film some kind of documentary about the Stargate, probably for if it goes public."

"And being the leading scientist-"

"Ahem, _one of_..."

Harry would have argued, but he respected Carter, so he'd give her this one.

"Alright, and being one of the leading scientists involved in the Stargate project, along with being the creator of the X-302, and the X-303, they are probably going to want an interview from me?"

"Most likely, yeah?"

"Are we sure the camera crew won't be lizard men disguised as people, wanting to take over the Stargate so they can phone home?"

Carter grunted at that, since Harry liked reminding them of how they put his sweetheart in jeopardy the last time.

"Yes, Harry, we're sure. The SGC insisted on using their own crew to handle the equipment and cameras."

"Who's in charge?"

"Some journalist called Emmett Bregman," Carter said, looking to Harry again. "Heard of him?"

"In passing," Harry said with a nod. "I think he did a documentary on the Gulf War at one time. Alright, we're here."

The Sujan dropped out of hyperspace in a system near the very edge of the galaxy. The planet in front of them was very large, about twice the size of earth, and had no water or plant life. The surface was a reddish-orange.

"I really don't want to take part in an interview..." Harry muttered. "I'd rather take soil samples of this planet for the next three weeks."

"Sorry, Harry. It would be best if you were there."

"Fine... Let's take a quick soil sample, and then bugger off back home."

–

"_That was a damn nightmare..._"

Harry chuckled as he sat in his lab at the SGC, talking to Carter on the phone.

"Really? I've always thought you'd look amazing on camera."

"_Really?_" Carter asked in obvious surprise. "_What do you mean?_"

"I mean, you're a beautiful woman, _and_ you're one of the smartest people on earth. Not only that, but when you start talking about your work, you practically glow, which makes people focus on you, even if they have no idea what you're talking about."

"_And now I'm blushing. Thanks a lot, Harry..._"

"You're cute when you blush," Harry said with a smirk as he lit a cigarette. "So, what did you talk about in your interview?"

"_They want to see me again. The first interview was just an overview of my mission history._"

"So... there's a possibility of multiple interviews?" Harry asked in horror. "Come on, Sam, why did you drag me back here?"

"_Shared pain is less pain._"

"Oho!" Harry barked with a grin. "It would seem as though my sadistic nature is rubbing off on you! Next thing you know, you'll be cutting yourself open and then stitching yourself back up! Couldn't call you Mini-Me, but I suppose Harriet works."

"_I'm not going to be your female lookalike, Harry._"

"Well, you-" Harry was interrupted by a knock on his door. A feeling of dread building up in his chest, he whispered to Carter, "He's here..."

"_He's a journalist, Harry, not the boogeyman..._"

"Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe. I'll call you back, Sam."

"_Good luck, Harry._"

Harry hung up the phone and rose from his chair, walking up to the door and slowly opening it, to find himself staring straight into a camera.

Next to the camera man stood a very short, kinda chubby guy with curly hair. Harry recognized him as Emmett Bregman.

"Dr. Potter?" Bregman asked, to which Harry nodded. "Emmett Bregman. I was wondering if you'd like to give an interview?"

"You were wondering, eh?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow. "Well, I'd love to oblige, but, you see, I'm driving through a tunnel right now, so the connection is kind_ssssh_... Sorry, I can't hear _ssssh_... Mr. Breg_sshhh_... I gotta _ssssh_..."

All throughout his acting out driving through a tunnel, Harry was slowly slipping back into his lab, closing the door equally slowly.

Once the door was closed, Harry wasted no time in locking it. Bregman started knocking on the door again, and he didn't seem to want to stop this time.

Harry wanted to mess with the guy, so therefore he walked up to one of his workbenches and reached under it, grabbing something that looked like an Asgard-designed typewriter. Grinning, he moved some of the crystals on it, and was suddenly enveloped in a white light.

When the light cleared, he found himself standing in the cafeteria, spotting O'Neill sitting at a table. He put out his cigarette and made his way over, sitting down across from the Colonel.

"Bregman sank his claws into you yet?" O'Neill asked, not looking up from his oatmeal.

"He tried, but I locked myself into my lab, then used my transporter to get me here without opening the door," Harry said, and was pleased to see O'Neill making the connection immediately.

"So he never actually saw you leave?"

"He was actually in the process of knocking on my door when I beamed away."

The grin O'Neill gave would have most definitely been visible from two hundred yards away.

"I take it you haven't given your interview yet?" Harry questioned.

"I gave a brief one in passing."

"Mary Steenburgen?"

"I just think she's hot."

"She's beautiful, I admit," Harry said, nodding. "Maybe I should have given a brief one as well..."

"Harry," O'Neill said, looking up from his oatmeal to give Harry a deadpan look, "if you gave a brief interview, you'd give him a heart attack. Just giving the highlights of your interests and history would pretty much just involve blood, scalpels, stitches, and organs."

Harry grinned. "You know me too well, Colonel."

–

**End of chapter twenty-six! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry does his best to avoid Bregman, and the SGC suffers a terrible loss!**


	27. Chapter 27

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-seven! In this chapter, Harry reveals a new invention, has his interview, and the SGC suffers said terrible loss as mentioned in the previous chapter!**

–

"Dr. Potter!"

Harry stopped walking and sighed in resignation upon hearing the voice. That Bregman character had been bothering him the whole day, trying to corner him. Usually it was outside his lab, so Harry could just lock himself in and avoid the man, but now, in the empty corridor? Eugh...

Lighting a cigarette, Harry turned around to look at the man, who was jogging up to him, camera crew in tow.

"What?" he muttered in irritation.

"I was wondering if I could have a word?"

"I can give you two," Harry grunted out. "Bugger off."

"Dr. Potter, I was assured that I would be getting the full cooperation of the personnel on this base," Bregman said softly. It looked like he had wanted to say it with a bit more force, but Harry figured that he was deflated upon seeing Harry's cold, unblinking stare.

"Well, that is just peachy, Mr. Bregman, but I have work to do," Harry said as he started walking again. Bregman wasn't put off by his leaving. Instead, he followed the scientist down the hall.

"Really? What are you working on?"

Harry tsk'ed and glanced at Bregman, who was giving him an eager stare.

"What's it going to take to get you to leave me alone?"

"How about an interview?"

Harry grunted and spun around, walking off.

"Where are you going?" Bregman asked.

"You wanted to know what I was working on, right?" Harry muttered. If he had to choose, he'd rather let Bregman see his work than give him an interview. After all, this work wasn't secret. There were others working on it, too. So maybe he could divert Bregman's attention to Dr. Lee?

He headed to one of the science labs, inside which was Dr. Lee and several other scientists. One was soldering something on a MALP, another was picking apart a staff weapon, and Dr. Lee was giving instructions to another set of scientists.

"Now, remember, we don't want Siler to-" Lee said, then noticed that Harry and Bregman had entered the room. "Oh, Dr. Potter! I wasn't expecting you for another half hour."

"Found a volunteer yet?" Harry asked, puffing on his cigarette.

"Uh, yes," Lee said as he gestured for the back of the room, where Siler was putting on a standard-issue tactical vest and helmet over his usual dark blue BDU jumpsuit.

"Good man, Siler," Harry said with a nod of approval as he flashed Siler a thumbs up. "It's always pleasing to see people willing to risk their lives in the name of science."

"What, uh, what are you doing here?" Bregman asked Harry, who gave him nothing more than a glance, before looking pointedly at Lee, who cleared his throat.

"Oh, uh, we're working on a new form of protection for the off-world teams," he explained to Bregman. "Dr. Potter has been very helpful in its creation. See, Kevlar will not stop the energy blast from a staff weapon. And, uh, the armor plating in other bullet-proof protection gets superheated from the plasma, so..."

Dr. Lee pucked up a shiny, thin sheet of metal, knocking on it in demonstration.

"...while it would stop the penetration, the wearer is essentially trapped in what becomes their own personal microwave oven. And, uh, you know... Not a good idea."

For emphasis, Lee pointed to a tactical vest worn by a scorched mannequin as he put down the metal plate.

"Thanks to Dr. Potter's efforts, however, we've been working on this."

Lee picked up a thin, black plastic square. He slipped it into the vest of the mannequin.

"A ceramic polymer which will not only stop the blast, but which will also absorb the energy from it, dispersing the heat in a microsecond. It also fits into a standard-issue SG vest... which Sergeant Siler will now demonstrate for us."

By now, Siler had finished putting on the vest and helmet, and now looked as though he was mentally preparing himself for what was about to happen.

Bregman leaned closer to Lee, lowering his voice.

"Wouldn't it be a better idea..." He paused when he noticed the cameraman focusing on him. "No, no, don't shoot me. Shoot..."

He gestured over his shoulder to Siler, and once the camera was focused on him, Bregman continued. "Don't you think that it would be more interesting, you know, if _I_ wore the vest?"

Lee's eyes widened in alarm. "No, no, no, no, no!"

"Well, isn't it safe?" Bregman asked.

"Well, absolutely, it's safe. Dr. Potter would never create anything that wouldn't work."

While speaking, Lee was gently pushing Bregman back, further out of range.

"So?"

"No. See, Dr. Potter tends to, hm, overkill..."

"Overkill?"

"Yeah, he was given the request to make a protective material that will stop a blast from a staff weapon. So, he designed protection that would stop a blast at the very least ten times more powerful than a staff weapon."

"Meaning?"

Before Lee could answer, Siler called out, "I'm ready, sir!"

A second later, Harry reached into his coat and pulled his beast of a plasma revolver, firing a blast of blue energy into the vest Siler wore. The blast was powerful enough to knock Siler through the air into the padded wall behind him. He collapsed to the floor with a groan.

"Well, it works," Harry announced unnecessarily as he holstered the revolver. Then, he spun around and walked off. "I'll be waiting for the reports on their performance in the field, and Dr. Stevens, I swear, if you put the word 'dude' in a report one more time, I will be testing my revolver on you, _without_ the armor."

Harry left the lab, and was very disappointed when he found that Bregman and his camera crew were following him out of the lab.

"I showed you what I was working on, why are you following me?" he muttered to the man.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Potter, but I was invited here to document what goes on in the SGC, and to interview the people who work here. That includes you, if I'm not mistaken. Now, from what I understand it, you are no longer a citizen of earth, so you are obviously not required to follow orders, but know that I won't give up until I get that interview."

Harry stopped and spun around to stare hard at Bregman. When he saw nothing but resolve in the journalist's eyes, he sighed heavily and rubbed his temples with a mutter of, "Ah, knob-gobbler..."

He spat out his cigarette and stepped on it, blatantly littering without a care in the world, before immediately lighting another one.

"Alright, then... My lab, two hours."

"Great!" Bregman said happily, clapping his hands together in satisfaction.

"Are you going to bugger off and leave me alone now?" Harry asked, giving him a glare.

"Yeah, sure! Well, for two hours, at least."

Harry almost growled as he watched Bregman walk off. Then, he spun on his heel and walked off.

–

"Jaaaanet!"

By now, it wasn't a very unusual thing to see Harry come prancing into the infirmary with a wide grin on his face, doing a little twirl as he approached Frasier and wrapped his arms around her from behind with an exclamation of "All the love!"

In fact, no one even batted an eye when he did so, not even Frasier, who kept looking through the medical report in her hands as though a mad scientist _wasn't_ latched onto her waist from behind.

"Harry, have you taken something questionable again?"

"Oh, most assuredly!" Harry said, letting go of Fraiser and grinning even wider. "I have an interview with the journalist in an hour and a half. I felt I needed to cheer up a bit before that, so I took... er... maybe it's better if I don't tell you..."

Fraiser sighed and closed the file, turning to look at Harry.

"Why is it that you always come here and act crazy every time you take one of your drugs?"

"Because I greatly enjoy your company, and you're a treat to cajole with!"

Fraiser didn't speak. Instead, she gave him a stern look, which made Harry grunt.

"Fine, fine, it's just because you're not as blinkered about this as the rest of the people on this base."

"Blinkered?" Fraiser asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, you know, narrow-minded?"

"I have to admit, it's amusing when you come here all excited," Fraiser said, a small smile appearing on her face. "I didn't think it was possible, but you become even more British when you're like this."

"Dog's bollocks, eh?"

"Like that. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds amazing," Fraiser said with a laugh, which was mimicked by Harry.

"Well, bollocks is bad, but saying dog's bollocks means that something is really fantastic. After all, a dog's bollocks are so fantastic that he can't stop licking them, see?"

Fraiser laughed again, as did the few infirmary-workers who were within earshot.

"So, have they interviewed you yet?"

"Not yet, no," Fraiser said, shaking her head. "I suppose hearing what goes on in this place isn't as interesting as hearing about all the trouble Colonel O'Neill has gotten into over the years."

"I think it's much more interesting," Harry said as he looked around, slinging an arm over Fraiser's shoulder. "After all, most of the trouble O'Neill has gotten into over the years has been treated here, by you."

"Yeah, well, I'm sure you will soon be taking that position."

"Oh, my darling Janet," Harry said, patting her on the head. "You know that the SGC wouldn't at all be the same without you. I mean, if you were fired, and I took your job, who would I talk medicine with? And who would I bother whenever I take a new drug and feel all faffy and up for a chin wag."

Fraiser smiled and hummed, reaching into her pocket and taking out a flashlight, holding it up and shining it in Harry's eye.

"So, I take it you will be borrowing a bed again?"

"You are so good to me," Harry said with a grin. "If I wasn't already taken, I would seduce you without hesitation."

"Judging by Anise, being already taken wouldn't stop you," Fraiser quipped, and Harry had to concede at that point. "Come on, spider-boy, go get some rest before your interview."

Harry hummed in agreement and walked over to one of the beds, falling face-first into the bed, having expertly taken off his glasses before his face smashed into the pillow.

"Janet, my hunky-dory little angel with a scalpel, take a few notes for me, will you?"

"I take it your mental journal isn't working?"

"Mm, I don't want to risk putting down my notes wrongly. Do it for me, will you?"

"Fine."

"The Popper, third compound, is a fast-acting drmhmmm..."

Harry gave Fraiser a complete report of his latest drug, nicknamed the Popper. It was lengthy and very detailed. Unfortunately, Fraiser was unable to write anything down, because everything except the first eight words was spoken through mumbles into a pillow.

But hey, at least the hour and a half passed quickly, and Harry now found himself sitting in his chair in front of his computer in his lab. He had spun around, however, and was now staring at Bregman, who sat in the corner of the lab with his camera crew behind him.

"We're rolling," the camera man announced.

"Sound?" Bregman asked as Harry lit a cigarette in boredom.

"Rolling."

"Okay," Bregman said, clapping his hands together. "Doctor Harry Potter. M.D., Physicist, Astrophysicist, Chemist, Biologist... Considered earth's foremost expert on the Stargate, alongside Major Carter-"

"Ah," Harry said, raising his hand to stop Bregman. "I'd say Carter is earth's foremost expert on the Stargate. I am not an official citizen of earth, and as such I am Othala's foremost expert on the Stargate."

"Yes, we'll be getting to that later. For now, you have a very impressive resume," Bregman said, looking over the file in his lap. "Twenty-three years old, and already you have done an extensive amount of work regarding the Stargate, and done a lot of classified work for the British government."

Harry didn't answer. Instead, he just took a drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke out of his nose. Bregman cleared his throat.

"Right. Now, it also says that you're a pioneer in the field of cybernetics, is that true?"

"You tell me," Harry said, jutting his thumb in the direction of another corner, where Frank and Aceso stood. Both AI were deactivated, and were standing stock still.

"Oh, wow, they look even more incredible up close," Bregman said in excitement, gesturing for the cameraman to shoot the two AI. "I've been told these two are, er, functional?"

"Aceso," Harry spoke, and immediately, Aceso's eyes lit up, and she looked around a few times.

"_Good day, master. How may I be of assistance?_"

"Oh, wow..." Bregman said again, his eyes wide. "That's... That's incredible. Did you make that?"

"Indeed, my master built me from scratch, Mr. Bregman," Aceso said, bowing her head in greeting. "I am Aceso, my master's assistant and nurse."

"And the other one? Can you activate that one?" Bregman asked with a gesture for Frank.

Harry slowly turned his head to look at Frank, contemplating it. Then he shared a look with Aceso, keeping the stare for a long time, before he turned back to Bregman to give him a firm, "No."

"Uh, why not? He isn't finished?"

"It's not that. I just don't feel like dealing with more paperwork."

"Paper...?"

"The master is referring to designation Frank's violent personality. He believes that Frank would take every opportunity he could to try to give you a heart attack from fright. Another possibility, although not as likely, is that Frank might point out enough of your flaws to make you self-terminate. He has not yet succeeded, but many have quit from fear or stress, and the master believes that the paperwork from a death would be much more annoying than what he has previously dealt with."

"I..." Bregman cleared his throat and looked to his crew, seeing that they were nodding furiously in confirmation. "I see... Well, let's leave him deactivated, then... Now, let's get back to the earlier point... You said you were a citizen of Othala?"

–

Harry, sighing, plopped down at O'Neill's table in the cafeteria, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"I take it your interview is finished?" O'Neill asked, to which Harry grunted in confirmation. "I'm actually amazed that guy got you to agree to one."

"Bothered me something fierce until I agreed," Harry said, taking out his zippo lighter and flicking it open. He lit it and brought the flame to his cigarette, but stopped half an inch away from it. He looked to O'Neill, who had raised his fork, upon which was impaled a piece of tomato, and was staring at him. Giving a conceding nod, Harry flicked the lighter shut and pocketed it again, electing not to light his cigarette while O'Neill ate. "I figured it couldn't be too annoying. I was gravely mistaken."

"You should have known that from the start."

"You know, it's partly your fault."

"My fault?" O'Neill asked in surprise. "How do you figure?"

"Well, you haven't given your interview, so he tried to coax some answers about you out of me, adding to the annoyance," Harry explained, which made O'Neill snort. "By the way, I heard you tore the ligament in your knee again during your last mission?"

"Hm, yeah... It's all good now, though," O'Neill muttered as he went back to eating his fruits.

"I've noticed you're getting injured more easily."

O'Neill froze at that and gave Harry a surprised look.

"Huh?"

"You're getting older, O'Neill," Harry said simply. "You can't do the things you could do twenty years ago. Your reflexes, your strength, your durability, everything is going down the shitter with age, wouldn't you say?"

"You know the strange thing about you, Harry?" O'Neill said with a thoughtful look on his face, putting the fork down. Harry gestured for him to elaborate. "You're too damn unreadable. I don't know _why_ you just said that, if you're just pointing it out for the sake of conversation, if you're trying to insult me, or if you're going to offer to help me with it, so I have no freaking idea if I should be irritated, angry, surprised, or grateful."

Harry chuckled at that.

"You remember that Unas I picked up on P3X-888?" he asked, to which O'Neill nodded. He reached into his coat and took out a small medical ampoule filled with a dark red liquid, setting it down on the table. At O'Neill's questioning look, he explained, "That's PPPF-02, a recent creation of mine. It stands for Peak Potential Performance Formula-02."

"Peak Performance?"

"Using certain chemicals and the like I extracted from the Unas, along with some properties from my Acro Elixir, I have created this," Harry said, tapping the ampoule with his finger. "It has the ability to increase the physical attributes of its recipient to the peak of human potential. It pushes strength, speed, durability, healing, eye sight, immune system, aging, et cetera, to the maximum level of human potential."

"So..." O'Neill picked up the ampoule and stared at it. "You... You made a super steroid?"

"I wouldn't actually call it a steroid. In fact, it doesn't so much give the recipient these abilities, as much as it forces evolution," Harry explained, and judging by O'Neill's blinking stare, he had no idea what he meant by that. "Listen, all humans have this potential locked inside them. Many theorize that unlocking this potential is the next step in human evolution. The PPPF-02 unlocks that potential and forces the body to evolve to that stage, making them a sort of superhuman."

"And you want to inject this crap into my body?"

"Yes," Harry said with a nod. "Of course, there are certain drawbacks to this."

"Such as?"

"Like I said, this formula increases your body's healing abilities, which means that your white blood cells will be efficient enough to fight off any microbe, foreign body, and others from your body, keeping you healthy and immune to most, if not all, infections, diseases, and disorders. This means that you will have a hard time becoming intoxicated, if it's even possible at all."

O'Neill gave Harry a deadpan look, showing that he clearly didn't approve of being unable to get drunk.

"There's another thing this formula improves that I thought you might enjoy," Harry continued, raising his hand and pointing at O'Neill's head. "There is the possibility of the formula increasing your intelligence. How much, I don't know, but I know it will improve. Maybe then you won't have to look so clueless all the time."

O'Neill opened his mouth, probably about to respond, when the doors to the cafeteria opened, and Senator Kinsey, followed by his Secret Service detail, along with the documentary crew, entered, approaching their table.

"Ah, Colonel!" Kinsey said with an obviously fake smile on his face. "As I'm sure you know, I'm here to be part of the piece these good men are putting together to document the fine work you're doing here at the SGC."

O'Neill shared a look with Harry, then said, "No, I didn't know that," without looking at Kinsey, who gave a false laugh.

"Oh, well, I'm-I'm sure there was a memo."

Now O'Neill looked away from an amused Harry to glance at Bregman near the doors, to see him whispering to the cameraman, who raised his camera.

"Well, did you tell them about the time you tried to get this place shut down?" he asked in a completely uninterested voice. "Or the time you had Hammond by the short?"

"I suggest you watch what you say, Colonel," Kinsey interrupted in a low, threatening voice. "Slander is a serious offense."

"So I hear," O'Neill said dryly.

Kinsey glanced back and smiled again when he observed the camera crew.

"I have always been a strong supported of this program. I admit that I was critical in the past, but that was only because of the unrealized potential I see this operation as having."

"I got the impression you just wanted all the power to yourself," Harry quipped, smirking at Kinsey. "Or wasn't that what you were pushing for during that little meeting I was called to?"

"Doctor Potter, I have never wanted the program for myself. I have merely wished to see that it remain safe, that this good earth is protected."

Harry blinked up at Kinsey.

"Pull the other one. It has bells on it."

Kinsey gave Harry a look of utmost hatred, before focusing his attention on O'Neill again.

"How did your interview go, Colonel?"

"It was short," O'Neill said, standing up, "yet, oh so sweet."

"The President wants you to play ball on this," Kinsey said, narrowing his eyes. "I hope you're not intending to disappoint our Commander-in-Chief? I would think you would want to show your appreciation for his backing over the years."

"Kinsey, what are you doing here? I mean, the last time anyone checked, you were trying to discredit the guy."

Harry stood up after pocketing the ampoule and watched with interest, noticing that everyone else in the room were doing the same.

"His term is up," Kinsey said simply. "My running mate and I are merely pointing out to the American people certain areas that we think we can do a better job in. And when that time comes... I know we can count on your vote, Colonel."

"Yeah, that'll happen," O'Neill muttered sarcastically as he began to leave the cafeteria, gesturing for Harry to follow. He did so, and he noticed that Kinsey was following as well, stopping them at the door.

"And I want you to know this. If elected, this program can count on our full support."

O'Neill stared at Kinsey for a moment, then looked at Harry.

"You wanna do this, or should I?"

"This may sound surprising, but I talk enough. He's all yours."

"Alright," O'Neill said and looked to the documentary crew. "You want to get this?"

"Sure," Bregman said with a shrug.

There was a long pause as O'Neill looked to Kinsey and took a deep breath.

"You smarmy, self-righteous, opportunistic, ass..."

Klaxons started blaring, drowning out much of O'Neill's rant.

"Unscheduled off-world activation! Colonel O'Neill to the control room. Repeat, unscheduled off-world activation."

"...son of a bitch," O'Neill finished his rant to a fuming Kinsey.

"Duty calls," the Senator muttered, and O'Neill turned to the crew.

"I was done."

"Colonel, what is this 'off-world activation' something?" Bregman wanted to know, only to get a shrug from O'Neill.

"I won't know until I get there," O'Neill said, before looking to Harry. "I'll stop by your lab later. We'll continue our talk there."

–

"Hellooo!" Harry said with a grin as he entered Carter's lab, finding Carter and Teal'c already there, standing around an obviously Goa'uld-made device, which looked, going by appearances, like a flying drone, or probe, of some kind.

"Glad you could make it, Harry," Carter said as she adjusted various wires connected to the device. "This is a pretty interesting device."

"I don't recognize it," Harry said, approaching the table. "Must be a new design, then. Anubis, probably."

"Yeah, probably. Teal'c, have you ever seen anything like this?"

"I have not," Teal'c said.

"Well, it's definitely a remote probe of some kind," Carter concluded, which made Harry grin. "The storage capacity of the memory crystals is immense, but so far, all I've found are detailed images of the ruins. You know, it makes sense. We use a MALP, so why wouldn't the Goa'uld?"

"The Goa'uld are scavengers. It is quite possible they got the idea from us," Teal'c theorized, which made Harry laugh.

"Ah, it's always so satisfying to have people like that lowering themselves to copying 'inferior' creatures."

Harry thought Carter was going to go full nerd about this probe, but she didn't. Instead, she asked them, "So, did you two do your interviews with the documentary crew yet?"

"Indeed," Teal'c said, grimacing.

"Yup," Harry said.

"You know, I have to admit, I can't wait to hear what everyone else said," Carter said, sounding a bit... excited?

"I did not say much," Teal'c said, getting an amused look from both Carter and Harry.

"Really?" Harry asked with a tone of feign surprise.

"That is surprising. It's usually so hard to shut you up," Carter said in agreement with a grin, making Teal'c raise an eyebrow, while Harry laughed again.

"I found the entire experience unpleasant," Teal'c muttered.

"I found it a bit annoying too, but I could at least survive the ordeal, so there's always that."

"They want to talk to me again," Carter said, to which Harry raised his eyebrows.

"You haven't had your second interview yet?"

"Not yet. I guess they haven't had time."

"Did your interview not go well either?" Teal'c asked, tilting his head to the side curiously.

"Well, I thought it was fine," Carter said defensively. "But apparently, I looked... nervous."

"Don't know why that would be a bad thing. You get this look of child-like innocence when you're nervous," Harry mused as he puffed on his cigarette, completely oblivious to the blush that broke out on Carter's face. "Anyway, you need some help with the probe?"

"How am I ever going to get better if you help me all the time?"

Harry flinched in surprise, staring at Carter in complete and utter shock for a few seconds, before placing his hand over his heart and giving a soft smile.

"You know, you saying that just now restored a smidgeon of my faith in humanity..." he said happily, then raised his hand in a wave as he walked off. "Alright, good luck. I'll be in my lab if you need me."

Harry returned to his lab, but he wasn't alone there for long, as there was a knock on his door no more than three minutes after he sat down in his chair.

"O'Neill," Harry greeted before the door had even opened. As it did, there stood O'Neill with a surprised look on his face.

"How did...? Oh, right, magic eyeball," the Colonel deduced, nodding in realization as he stepped into the lab.

"Yup. Thought any more about the PPPF-02?"

"I have, actually," O'Neill muttered, scratching his head. "I'm still a bit iffy, you know... No offense, but... you're crazy..."

"Yes, and...?"

"Well, you gotta understand my position, right? Would you trust a concoction made by a mad scientist?"

"If it worked, yes," Harry said without hesitation. "But then again, I'm smart, and would understand the formula. I guess I can see how one of a lower IQ would have a hard time coping."

O'Neill's brow furrowed, and he muttered, "See, I don't know if you're insulting me, or just stating a fact..."

"How about both?"

"That's funny..."

"What did you come for, O'Neill? Do you want the wonder juice or not?"

"Can you promise me that it won't turn into a monster, or something?"

Harry lit a cigarette and puffed on it slowly. Then, he muttered, "I don't know why you'd trust the word of a mad scientist more than his concoction, but yes, I can promise you that, aside from the drawback of being unable to get drunk, it will only have positive effects on your body."

"Alright... I must be crazy, but let's do it."

"Right! Get on the-"

Klaxons went off suddenly, making Harry looked up with a furrowed brow.

"That's been happening a lot today..."

O'Neill hummed in agreement as he looked around.

"Hey, I guess I'll have to take a rain-check on that wonder juice," he muttered and walked off. "I'll see you later, Harry."

Harry grumbled about interruptions as he went back to work, shaking his head.

Thirty minutes later found Harry tinkering with two small disks the size of quarters, and about an inch thick. In the center of the wirework on each disk was an Asgard crystal.

"Frank?" Harry said as the door to his lab opened, and the AI dropped his cloak, closing the door behind him.

"_From what I heard, master, SG-13 and SG-3 are pinned down by Jaffa on the planet designated P3X-666, and SG-1, SG-5, and SG-7, along with the meatbag Fraiser have been sent to rescue them._"

"Hm... I'm surprised they didn't send us," Harry muttered, cupping his chin.

"_Perhaps, master, they are of the same mind as Major Carter?_" Aceso suggested from the corner of the room. "_Perhaps they believe that they can never progress if you help them all the time?_"

"While I normally would encourage such behavior, I've taken quite a shine to SG-1 and Dr. Fraiser," Harry said, taking a long drag on the cigarette dangling from his mouth. "I get this annoying feeling that something bad is going to happen..."

Klaxons started blaring suddenly, which made Harry grit his teeth and put out his cigarette.

"Bloody hell, I am a damn jinx..."

With that, he got out of his chair and rushed from his lab.

"Medical team to the Gate Room!" came Hammond's voice over the intercom, which made Harry's eyes widen. He broke into a run, wanting to join the medical team as soon as possible.

By the time he reached the Gate Room, he found that the SG teams had already arrived, and several people were being wheeled away on gurneys.

"O'Neill!" Harry barked as he rushed up to one of the gurneys, finding the Colonel laying on it, not moving. "What happened?"

"Staff blast, sir," one of the medics wheeling the gurney said. "Looks like the vest stopped most of it, but-"

"Alright, get him to the infirmary, get that vest off, check for any and all injuries, and I swear, if you bollocks this up and miss any internal injuries, I am going to slice you open, and give him your organs, understand?"

"Yes, sir!" the medic said quickly, nodding nervously as Harry stopped and waited for the last gurney to reach him.

"Alright, what have we got?"

"Another staff blast," a medic said. "She got hit in the side, and it missed the plates."

Harry looked down at the person on the gurney, and his eyes widened.

"Janet..."

–

**End of chapter twenty-seven! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry assumes the comforting role (shocking, right?), rants about politics, and shows off his genius once more!**


	28. Chapter 28

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-eight! I'm terribly sorry that you guys had to wait almost a month for an update that should have been released much sooner! Unfortunately, the fan in my laptop is broken, and I can't stay on for too long. But here it is! ****In this chapter, Harry goes back to England to come up with a solution to the problem called 'death'!**

–

Harry was currently sitting in the infirmary. In the bed in front of him was a lifeless body, the corpse of Dr. Janet Fraiser. Her eyes were closed, and she looked very peaceful, but just seeing her pissed Harry off.

"Dr. Potter?" a member of the infirmary staff muttered quietly as she approached Harry. "Dr. Potter, shouldn't you check on Colonel O'Neill? I don't want to be disrespectful, but he needs your help more than Dr. Fraiser..."

"It's funny how when people say they don't want to be disrespectful, they tend to be just that," Harry muttered, putting a cigarette in his mouth but not lighting it. "O'Neill's fine. I gave him a new formula that should mend his broken ribs and any old lasting injury he may have. He'll wake up in a few hours, maybe a day, feeling better and more rested than ever."

"Oh..." the woman uttered, clearing her throat. "Well, Airman Wells-"

"I've had Aceso mend his injuries. He's fine as well. Trust me, I wouldn't be sitting here staring at a dead human if there was something else that needed my attention, Dr. Miles."

"I, uh... I see..." Dr. Miles mumbled, always having been one to be nervous around Harry. "May I ask, sir, why you're staring at Dr. Fraiser?"

"Yes."

"Sorry?"

"You may ask," Harry said, reaching into his coat as he narrowed his eyes at Fraiser's body, taking out a notepad and a pen.

"Well, why _are_ you staring at her, Doctor?"

"None of your business, Dr. Miles. Even if it was, I doubt you would understand."

"I-"

Without another word, Harry shot to his feet and walked off, scribbling his idea down in his notepad.

Although he was planning on heading straight for Hammond's office, his feet instead took him to Carter's lab. Try as he might not to care, he found himself worried about how she was dealing with this. After all, she did take Daniel's death very hard, even though he hadn't technically died.

Reaching her lab, he pushed the door open without knocking, as he and Carter were past such formalities most of the time.

Carter was sitting inside, in front of her computer. She looked strong enough, but Harry saw that her eyes were watery. She was barely holding her tears in.

"You know, I could permanently close your tear ducts for you, if you'd like," Harry spoke, making Carter jump and snap her head in his direction. "Of course, your eyes would dry up quickly, but I'm sure I could find a way to circumvent that."

"Harry..." Carter breathed with a sigh, a small smile on her face. "I appreciate you trying to lighten the mood, but..."

"Lighten the mood? I was presenting you with an offer. If I was trying to lighten the mood, I would probably do something like offer you euthanasia," Harry said, feigning sounding insulted. Then he blinked and assumed a pondering stance. "No, wait, that would be an offer, too..."

"Harry..."

"You're right, my humor is lost when it doesn't have proper timing," Harry admitted as he walked up to Carter. "So, how are you holding up?"

Carter leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling in silence for a while.

"Worse than I would have thought. I sure could go for some of your cold detachment right about now..."

"Detachment?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. "Not at all. I cared greatly about Janet, and her death disturbed me. But I am rather comfortable with the topic of death. I am aware that people die, I have come to terms with that fact. As such, I can retain an emotional stability that will allow me to perform at maximum capacity at all times. This allows me to focus my attention on the people I can still save."

"Okay, well, I could go for some of that, then," Carter said, which made Harry snort.

"My mindset is not for everyone. You'd go insane within the hour."

Carter nodded slowly and looked back to her computer, staring at it without actually looking at it.

"It feels weird... That I won't be able to see her again... That I..."

Harry slowly reached out and put what he was certain was a comforting hand on Carter's shoulder. She didn't flinch away, so that was good. Instead, she gave off another great sigh and looked up at him.

"There was nothing you could do?"

"She was already dead when you brought her through the Gate," Harry said, shaking his head. "The staff blast punched through half her lung and disintegrated her heart."

"But that shouldn't have stopped you," Carter said quickly. "You always come up with these brilliant solutions, and-"

"You can't regrow a heart," Harry said, shaking his head. "Well, you can, but it's not like growing back a lung. I have healing devices that can grow back a lung in pristine condition, but growing back a heart isn't the same. You don't regrow that heart. You basically grow a new one, a heart that doesn't have the muscles it has built up during the body's growth. It wouldn't be able to keep up with the amount of blood that would need to be pumped through the body. It's like putting an infant's heart in a grown person's chest."

Carter screwed her eyes shut, and Harry noticed that the tears were flowing now.

"Be strong, Sam," Harry said, tearing the page he'd been scribbling on out of his notepad and setting it down on the desk in front of Carter, smiling softly at her. "I think Cassandra would need you to be."

With that, Harry walked off, leaving Carter to read the page.

Next, he headed to his original destination, General Hammond's office. This time, he actually did knock, and stepped inside upon hearing Hammond's voice.

Hammond was sitting behind his desk, looking grim as he stared down at a folder in front of him.

"How are you holding up, General?" Harry asked, tilting his head to the side curiously.

"I won't lie and say that Dr. Fraiser's death didn't affect me more than it should," Hammond muttered, reaching up and rubbing his temples. "But on top of my existing troubles with her death, I now have this to deal with."

"This?" Harry asked, approaching the desk and reading the papers upside-down. "Richard Woolsey... Ah, yes, he's NID. MBA and LLB from Harvard, ten years as lead counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers, and five years on the Defense Policy Board. You have him investigating this operation?"

Hammond blinked up at him.

"How do you know all that about him?"

"'Knowledge is Power,' or 'Know your enemy,'" Harry said, shrugging. "Pick one."

Hammond nodded slowly, then reached for another paper, picking it up and holding it out to Harry.

"A trusted source faxed us this internal NID memo Woolsey sent recently."

Harry took the paper and looked it over, his eyebrows rising when he saw that it was regarding the economics of the SGC. He was remarking upon the fact that the training of the members of the SG teams cost millions of dollars, blah, blah, blah...

"Tch..." Harry uttered as he tossed the paper onto Hammond's desk. "It's because of people like him, always thinking of costs, that the new armor isn't already in use. It's because of him that Fraiser wasn't wearing a vest with protection that emitted an energy-absorbing field which would have absorbed most of the staff blast, and why there were so many casualties in the first place..."

"It's true, if the new armor had actually become standard-issue, this operation would have ended very differently," Hammond said with a nod, sighing again. He was quiet for a moment, then tilted his head to the side. "Did you need something, Doctor?"

"Yes, Fraiser," Harry said, making Hammond blink.

"Come again?"

"Well, not so much need, as want. I want Fraiser. Or rather, I want her body," Harry said in a light tone, as though simply talking about the weather. "Preferably as soon as possible, before there is too much brain deterioration, which would mean more work for me."

"You want her body?" Hammond asked, to which Harry nodded. "Why?"

Harry smirked and leaned forward, his expression one of total confidence.

"I can bring her back."

Hammond's eyes widened in shock at that, flinching back as though struck.

"Doctor, I admit that you are very inventive, and amazing at what you do, there is no doubt about that, but the thought that you could possibly come up with a way to bring someone back from the dead..."

He shook his head, looking grim.

"I am sorry, Doctor, but I cannot authorize you to experiment on her body. Unless... Were you planning on using the cloning technology of the Asgard?"

"No, she is already dead, so it would be impossible to download her mental patterns. This is actually something I came up with on the way here."

"I can't allow you to do this because of something you thought up during a walk a couple of minutes ago."

Harry gave off a "Hrhmm..." sound as he furrowed his brow in thought. Then he nodded to himself and said, "General, despite how I may act, and what I may say, I respect you. Don't know if I've ever told you that, but I do. Usually, I don't reveal my inventions until they work, but I'm going to tell you what I'm planning on doing with Janet."

Hammond's eyebrow rose as Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I am planning on healing the injuries made to Fraiser's body. Her heart cannot be grown back, however, so I am planning on building a cybernetic one for her. After that, I will need to fix any deterioration to her brain, followed by a complete rejuvenation of all internal organs, along with a full blood-replacement."

Hammond sighed and muttered, "Doctor..."

"General," Harry interrupted as he leaned back. "Am I really going to have to take this up with Cassandra and risk giving her what you'd deem to be false hope?"

"Are you trying to guilt me into giving you Dr. Fraiser's body, Doctor?" Hammond asked, to which Harry gave a big grin.

"It's working, isn't it?"

"Perhaps if you write down the entire procedure and let me read through it, I might consider it-"

"The longer you wait, the more work I have to do, and the higher the chance of failed reconstruction of her brain," Harry said with a frustrated sigh. "General, it was discussions and the dragging of feet that got Fraiser into this situation. Are you really going to waste this chance to get her back?"

Hammond fell silent, and his brow furrowed as he stared hard at Harry.

"Give me twenty-four hours to think about it, Doctor. There are a lot of things for me to consider."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"That will be pushing it, but sure... I suppose that's the best I can hope for. In the meantime, I'll get to work healing what injuries I can, and doing my best to preserve her body."

With that, the mad scientist nodded to Hammond before leaving the office.

As he had predicted, Harry didn't even make it to his lab before he was intercepted by Carter.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide as she marched straight toward Harry, waving the torn page from the notepad around. "Are you serious about this?"

"Do you really still feel the need to ask me that question?" Harry asked curiously, raising an eyebrow.

"But this..." Carter gestured for the page. "This is crazy. You can build many things, Harry, but you can't make a heart."

"Sure I can. I'll just..." Harry trailed off, blinking slowly as another idea popped into his head. "I'll be back!"

Harry, not letting Carter say anything else, turned right round and ran back to Hammond's office, throwing the door open without knocking.

"Hey, General, that idea just took second place. I'm leaving for Britain for a few days. I'll be back once I flesh out this new idea!" he said quickly, then closed the door, only to open it again to look at the surprised-looking General. "Oh, and keep her body as preserved as possible!"

–

"Come in."

Harry couldn't contain his grin upon seeing the look of utmost surprise on the ancient headmaster's face as he stepped into Albus Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts.

"'Lo, Professor!" Harry greeted cheerily, puffing on his cigarette with his usual impunity. "How's non-retirement treating you?"

"Harry?" Dumbledore asked, blinking slowly as though he wasn't quite sure if he had finally gone completely barmy and started hallucinating. "Is that you, my boy?"

"Indeed it is," Harry said, walking up to Dumbledore's desk and plopping himself down in one of the two chairs in front of it.

Dumbledore hadn't changed much since Harry graduated. It seemed as though his aging had halted at one hundred and fifty, as he had just as many wrinkles on his face as he did when Harry last saw him. He looked exactly the same. Hell, even his beard was just as long as it had always been.

"My, my, this is a surprise," Dumbledore said, suddenly smiling brightly at the mad scientist. "I had not expected to see you again, to be honest."

"Yeah, the whole Stargate bit has been keeping me a bit busy," Harry said with a slow nod.

"And naturally, you did not come here to catch up with an old man?"

"No, actually, I'm here on sort-of business."

"_Sort-of_ business?" Dumbledore repeated humorously. "How is your business 'sort-of,' my boy?"

"Well, it's more related to my hobby of research and experimentation," Harry said, taking a long drag on his cigarette, "but it also involves a recently deceased co-worker."

"Oh, dear..." Dumbledore said, his brow furrowing in concern. "Well, I am certain that I can provide you with an alibi, but the body-"

"Hardy-har," Harry mock-laughed at the headmaster, who chuckled good-naturedly. "I'm actually trying to do some good here."

"Would you like to tell me about it?"

"Certainly. You see, she was killed through means I'm not allowed to discuss-"

"Which, given your lack of respect for vows of silence, means that you simply do not feel like bothering."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but then slowly closed it in favor of smiling fondly at the old headmaster.

"It's good to be back," he admitted happily. "Anyway, things happened, and her lung and heart were destroyed. I can easily regrow a lung, but a heart is tricky. At first, I was considering getting her an artificial heart, but restoring the deterioration of the body and brain is too bothersome."

"I take it you came up with a simpler solution, and that it is the reason why you..." Dumbledore trailed off, and his gaze slowly moved toward Fawkes' empty perch in his office. "Oh dear..."

"Bingo," Harry said with a grin.

"Harry, please tell me you do not intend to create some sort of phoenix-Muggle?"

"I was thinking a Phuggle, or Mugglix."

Dumbledore was quiet for a while, giving Harry his usual piercing look, but Harry's Occlumency shields held strong against his weak Legilimency probe. Harry briefly wondered how well they would hold up if Dumbledore went all-out on him.

"Are you here to kidnap Fawkes, Harry?"

"Eeeh," Harry uttered as his head lolled from side to side in thought, contemplating what to say. "Not... _necessarily_... It all depends on you, you know."

"Me?"

"Yes. It depends on whether you will allow me to take a blood sample from Fawkes or not."

"And if I say no?" Dumbledore asked, even though they both knew what Harry was going to say.

"_Then_ I'll resort to phoenixnapping."

"As expected," Dumbledore said with a nod, looking contemplative. "And if I agree to this, will it make me an accomplice in a grave violation of the Statute of Secrecy?"

"My work is classified, but given that I'm working with Muggles..." Harry gave off another "Eeeeh..." and held up his hand, giving it a wiggle as if to say, "Kinda so-so."

Dumbledore hummed softly, which made Harry scoff.

"Come on, Albus! Don't you ever get tired playing by the rules?"

"Harry, I am one hundred and twenty-two years old," Dumbledore said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "I think you will find that the word 'rules' tends to be the first word in your vocabulary that disappears with age. I am only concerned about Fawkes."

"It's just a little prick with a needle, and then it's done."

"I have your word?"

"Cross my heart, and may I be killed by lightning if I'm lying."

"I know you are trying to reassure me, Harry, but we both know that even if you were lying, you would not allow yourself to be killed by something so... normal."

"You know me too well, Albus. But yes, you have my word that I will only prick Fawkes with a needle and fill this," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small blood collection tube, holding it up for Dumbledore to see, "with his blood. That's all."

"Very well, then. As I have no wish to see Fawkes kidnapped..." Dumbledore sighed, making a face as though he had made a deal with the devil which he was deeply regretting. He was exaggerating greatly, though, Harry was sure of it. "Fawkes!"

In a flash of flames, the phoenix appeared sitting on Dumbledore's shoulder.

–

As Harry the very next day was walking through the SGC, he was stopped by a very pompous-sounding voice.

"Dr. Potter?"

Harry froze in his tracks, focused slightly, then muttered, "Yes, Satan?"

When no response came, he turned around and found himself staring at none other than NID member Richard Woolsey, a bald, kinda skinny guy in a suit, with an expression that practically screamed 'I actually believe that I'm better than you.'

"Oh, Richard Woolsey, right?" Harry asked, to which the unamused man gave a nod. "Sorry, I thought you were somebody else."

"Very funny," Woolsey said. "I have been authorized to conduct a full investigation into the recent attempted rescue of SG-13."

Harry was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"Bully for you. Your mum must be ecstatic."

"Dr. Potter, I have had interviews with all members of SG-1 so far, except for you."

"I... don't have a response for that. Is this important? It doesn't sound important."

"It's very important, Doctor," Woolsey said. "You need to be interviewed as well."

"And I should care... why?"

"Dr. Potter, I am well-aware of your disrespectful nature, but not even you are able to ignore a command from Senator Kinsey himself, especially when this involves a larger examination of SGC strategic policy that the Intelligence Oversight committee is preparing from the President."

"Wow... That was a passionate speech. I applaud that passion," Harry said honestly. He nodded slowly and lit a cigarette, taking a long drag on it before locking eyes with Woolsey. "Well, Mr. Woolsey, to show that your passion has actually moved me, I'm not simply going to ignore you and walk away like I usually would. Instead, I'm going to show you this." Harry pulled down the front of his pants slightly, and pulled up his shirt to show the waistband of his boxers, revealing a Union Jack stitched into the waistband. "And this." Now Harry tucked his shirt back into his pants, then flipped Woolsey the longbowman salute. "And _now_ I'm going to walk away."

With that, Harry turned around and walked off, shaking his head at the stupidity of this guy. How could he, even in his wildest dreams, have believed that Harry would do as ordered just because he was ordered to? Especially if said order came from Kinsey?

Two hours later, there was a knock on the door to Harry's lab, and Carter stepped in at his urging, still looking sad, but at least she wasn't crying anymore.

"Hi, Harry."

"Wow, you sound really depressed," Harry muttered as he stared into his electron microscope, then jutted down a few notes in his notebook. Even though he could just put down the notes in his Bolt-journal, he preferred writing in a notebook when it came to work.

"Shouldn't I be?" Carter asked, to which Harry scoffed.

"Of course not. You don't have to mourn Fraiser, because she won't be dead for much longer."

"How can you be so sure?" Carter asked. "I mean, what gives you this confidence?"

Harry paused in his writing and leaned back in his chair, finally turning his gaze toward Carter.

"Sam, do you love what you do?"

"What-"

"Do you?"

"Yes. It's the most fascinating work I could ever be part of."

"I love what I do," Harry admitted as he lit a cigarette and puffed on it. "No, that wasn't enough passion. Ahem, I completely and utterly _love_ what I do. I love it, because I could never see myself doing anything else. I am a scientist at heart, and I'm damn good at what I do. It has gotten so far that, if I couldn't do this, I would have nothing. I would waste away without purpose. _That_ is what gives me confidence. If I fail at this, I'm not the best there is at this. It would mean that I have grown stagnant, that this is my limit. I refuse to have a limit."

Harry rapped his fingers against his knees as he contemplated how to continue his speech.

"This is all I can do. I can't have a limit. I can't have nothing else to do, because that would be devastating for me. So, I tell myself that I can do this, not just because I want to, but also because I _must_. I count Fraiser as a friend, but I doubt I could do this if that was the only reason."

"It's not?" Carter muttered, furrowing her brow. "What other reason could you possibly have?"

"I'm going to share a secret that I have discovered," Harry said as he rose from his chair. "Although I am a descendant of Ancients, and am officially an Asgard in citizenship, I am still human, and nothing motivates a human to work harder... more than when they're faced with their own destruction."

"What are you saying?" Carter asked. "What, you're doing this out of self-preservation?"

"Oh, yes," Harry said, plopping down on his chair again. "If the desire to have Janet back isn't enough to get me to make a breakthrough, then I simply focus on what would happen if I fail. And the prospect of what would happen if I did..." Harry took a long drag on his cigarette, then blew the smoke out through his nose, before looking up at Carter with serious eyes. "That scares me more than anything in this universe."

"Wow..." Carter said, blinking in surprise. "It seems that every time we have these little heart-to-hearts, I discover a whole new side of you."

"I'm a complicated man," Harry said as he turned back to his microscope.

"Not that complicated." Carter actually managed a smile as she walked up to him. "So, what are you working on?"

"Ever heard of the phoenix?"

"You are referring to the mythological bird that's cyclically reborn?"

"That's the one," Harry said with a nod. "Well, I found a bird on a planet in the Ida galaxy, which possesses some very incredible cells."

This was a story Harry had cooked up with Thor, who assured him that he would have an alibi provided by any and all Asgard who may get question regarding the truth to this explanation.

"These cells undergo a regeneration process every once in a while, literally making the bird immortal, a phoenix, if you will."

"What do you mean?" Carter asked, and Harry rolled away from the microscope and gestured for it. Carter moved over to it an inspected the blood sample under it. "What am I supposed to be looking for?"

"Look at the blood. Looks like normal, if somewhat damaged cells, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, look what happens if it gets superheated."

Harry reached over and flipped a switch on a device attached to the underside of the sample tray, which started humming softly. Carter kept looking into the microscope, looking unimpressed.

"Now, observe, the blood starts boiling, the cells burn up. But..." Harry flipped the switch again, ceasing the humming in the device. "Now look when it cools."

Carter gasped in shock, flinching back from the microscope and giving Harry an amazed look.

"As you can see, new cells build themselves up from the remains of the old ones, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, reborn."

"Wait, Harry, are you telling me...?"

"I love how quick you are to make the connection," Harry said with a grin. "I am going to concoct a serum that will bond these cells to Janet's body. Then, I am going to superheat her, and have her be reborn from her own ashes."

"But, Harry..." Carter looked back into the microscope. "These cells aren't completely identical to the old ones. The old ones were damaged, yet these are pristine. How-"

"Naturally, the theory is that when she is reborn, she will start over from scratch, a baby. However, and I had a bit of help from Heimdall on this, I will also be bringing an Asgard machine used during their cloning which will rapidly age her to a suitable point."

Carter slowly leaned back, her eyes wide in wonder, then turned to look at Harry.

"You can really do this, can't you?"

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I couldn't," Harry said with a grin. "I've already sent a report on my work to Hammond. He should, if he's smart, give the go-ahead soon."

Carter smiled again, a much bigger smile than before, at the prospect of getting back one of her best friends.

–

It was two days later that everything was finished. It would have happened earlier, but Harry actually had to turn an entire isolation room into a cremation room for the procedure, so that took up quite a lot of time. However, with the help of SGC personnel, and the respectively willing and reluctant help from Aceso and Frank, he got it converted in record time.

Not only was it a cremation room, but the table on which the body of Janet Fraiser lay had been converted to the senescence machine which would help her age.

In the observation room, behind a thick, heat-resistant glass, stood Harry, Carter, O'Neill, Daniel, Hammond, and a couple of infirmary personnel who he had never bothered to memorize the names of.

"Alright, I'm going to begin the cremation process," Harry announced, holding a small, round remote in his hand, with a single switch on it. "And here... we... go."

He flipped the switch, and immediately lights in the walls were turned on. They glowed brighter and brighter, and a soft humming was heard from the other side of the glass.

The people in the observation room watched as Fraiser's body, covered by a flame-retardant sheet, was caught on fire and burned with an unnatural speed.

"If my calculations are correct, and they always are, the cells should begin regenerating even before the body has finished burning," Harry said as he watched in interest as Fraiser's body was quickly reduced to naught but a pile of ash. Once satisfied that enough time had passed, he flicked the switch, turning the heating lights off, then watched in silence with everyone else.

Nothing happened for about ten seconds. O'Neill opened his mouth to say something, but then the sheet over the ashes started moving.

A head poked out from under the sheet. A baby, not quite a newborn, but very close to it. Harry's grin at the sight was so wide that he was afraid his head might split in two.

"Well... I'll be damned..." O'Neill muttered in amazement. Harry put the remote in one of his coat pockets, then fished out another remote from another pocket, this one with a button on it, rather than a switch.

"Alright, since the senescence machine is already keyed in to her genes, who wants to see some rapid aging?"

He was surprised when O'Neill actually raised his hand with a look of interest on his face.

–

It was a day later that Janet Fraiser, alive and very healthy, back to her original age (minus a few years), sat on a bed in the infirmary, wearing a hospital gown, and being examined by Harry.

"Now, I know you haven't, but I'm obligated to ask," Harry said as he checked her blood pressure. "Felt anything strange these last twenty-four hours?"

"Not really, if you don't count how I felt when I woke up in the body of an infant in a pile of ash," Fraiser said with a small smile. "Thanks for that, by the way."

"Yeah, well, I couldn't live with the thought of Cassandra having to go through life without you."

Fraiser's eyebrows slowly rose, and she gave Harry a skeptical look.

"Somehow, I highly doubt that."

At that, Harry gave a bark of laughter.

"Yeah, you're right. I just wanted to make a human phoenix."

This made Fraiser chuckle softly as well.

"Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad you helped me," she said as she got off the bed. "Even though my death shocked the accountants into action, I think I prefer being alive."

"And you _are_ alive," Harry said with a grin. "You're perfectly healthy, more so than you have ever been. Your rebirth repaired any and all damages your body may have suffered in the past. I daresay you're officially a virgin again."

Fraiser blushed at that and gave Harry a shocked look.

"You mean... Everything...?"

"Yup," Harry said with a nod. "Alright, off with you now, I'm sure Cassandra's eager to see you. Besides, I have an appointment with O'Neill in a few minutes."

As Fraiser left, Harry couldn't help but grin wider at seeing her obviously contemplating whether everything down there really was repaired or not. Her greatest concern, he was sure, was the hymen, which had without a doubt been rebuilt.

When Fraiser had disappeared to get dressed, O'Neill came stepping into the infirmary.

"Hey, Harry," he said as he approached the mad scientist. "I know you said you wanted to examine me, but you won't be using anything cold, right?"

Harry grinned cruelly as he held up his stethoscope.

–

**End of chapter twenty-eight! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, the moment many of you have been waiting for arrives! Daniel discovers a Repository of the Ancients!**


	29. Chapter 29

**ZnK here with chapter twenty-nine! Problem solved! A table-fan is more than enough for me to keep my laptop on enough to work on this fic! So, as an apology for how long you had to wait for the last couple of chapters, here's the new one! ****In this chapter, Harry has an oopsie with the Repository, and faces the wrath of Tonks!**

–

It had been a while since anything exciting happened, Harry had to admit. The only thing of interest had been seeing how the PPPF-02 affected O'Neill. Harry had been greatly amused to see O'Neill outrun all the young and fit airmen with ease.

As expected, the formula had increased every single one of O'Neill's physical abilities, along with healing old injuries, such as his back and knees.

O'Neill had confessed that it was annoying at times, because he now had nothing to blame if he suddenly felt like slacking off for a while.

"Alright, seven-letter word," Harry said as he sat in his lab with O'Neill. "Up, down, charmed, blank."

"Strange," O'Neill said immediately, then blinked. "Oh, wow... I knew that."

"Amazing, isn't it?" Harry said with a grin, writing the word into the crossword puzzle that O'Neill had decided to fill out. Naturally, Harry had found this to be an amazing way to test out O'Neill's new mental capabilities. "Alright, three-letter word, twenty-three across. The atomic weight of boron."

O'Neill crossed his arms at that and closed his eyes, thinking deeply with a loud hum.

"Fat," he said finally, which made Harry snort.

"Well, I guess you weren't exactly a big fan of the sciences when you went to school, eh?"

O'Neill narrowed his eyes. "No, I was busy wanting to serve my country... and flirting."

"Well, to each his own, I suppose," Harry said, reaching into his pocket. He drew out a playing card and flashed it to O'Neill for a nanosecond, before pocketing it again. "Which one was that?"

"Three of Clubs," O'Neill said immediately, which made Harry grin.

"And how does it feel to have a good brain?"

"Harry, I'm not really cut out for being smart..." O'Neill muttered. "I like being dumb. Ignorance is bliss, you know?"

"That's stupid," Harry said, giving O'Neill a shocked look. "And for thinking that, _you're_ stupid."

"_Thank you_!" O'Neill said with a bright smile, rising to his feet. "Alright, I'll see you tomorrow."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but O'Neill had already left the lab. He had to admit, he was shocked speechless. How the hell could anyone wish to _not_ gain knowledge? To actively avoid it? To be upset over having their ability to learn improved?

"Bloody hell..." Harry muttered, running a hand through his hair. "I'm actually respecting him for it..."

–

Harry was met with surprised looks from Major Harper and Colonel Reynolds as he stepped into the briefing room, finding that they were the only ones who had arrived so far. Seeing their looks, he raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Haven't you ever seen a scientist before, Reynolds?"

"Just surprised, Doctor," Reynolds, leader of SG-3, said with a small smile on his face. "You don't tend to go on offworld missions."

"I trust you have read this file?" Harry said, holding up the file in his hand. Getting nods from both airmen, he gave them a deadpan look. "I find it shocking that you would think that I wouldn't want to go on a mission to find a bloody Repository of the Ancients."

"I find it shocking that you would," Harper said. "I mean, Colonel O'Neill, from what I've read, almost died the last time SG-1 encountered one of those things."

"Death is a silly thing to worry about for me," Harry said, waving him off. "Especially when it comes to brain capacity."

Reynolds rolled his eyes at that, and Harry moved over to one of the chairs, pulling it out and sitting down. The chair to his right was also pulled out, without anyone touching it, which made Reynolds and Harper jump in surprise.

"The hell...?" Harper muttered.

"Oh, yes," Harry said as he set down the file and opened it to give it one final read. "Frank here will be accompanying me on this mission."

In the chair, Frank faded into existence. He was sitting down, having taken to emulating human behavior recently in an effort to understand their thought-process.

General Hammond came stepping out of his office, into the briefing room. After muttering "At ease" to Reynolds and Harper, who had stood to attention, he looked to Harry.

"Dr. Potter. I see you have already taken the liberty to invite Frank along."

"Yeah," Harry said with a nod. "The report says that a Goa'uld reconnaissance drone was spotted on the planet, which means that an encounter with the Goa'uld is highly likely. And... Well..."

"_I assured my Master that I would never forgive him if he willingly forced me to stay in Stargate Command while there was killing to be done,_" Frank said simply, leaning back in the chair, putting his hands behind his head and putting his feet up on the table. "_Hm... Master, I cannot fathom why humans would assume this pose. In the event of an attack, it would be difficult to assume a defensive position._"

"I think that pose is more meant for comfort than practicality, Frank," Harry said without looking up from the file.

"_I will never be able to fully understand a human's desire for comfort,_" Frank muttered. "_Now, Master, I believe you have miscalibrated my watch. It would seem that the briefing should have started thirty-two minutes and fifteen seconds ago._"

"There's no miscalibration, Frank. I think O'Neill's just late."

"_I see. The tardiness of that meatsack may risk the Goa'uld making an appearance before we have reached the Repository, in which case the result would be a violent struggle._"

Frank sat up into a more straight-backed position, taking his feet down from the table.

"_Upon further consideration, the meatbag should take all the time he needs._"

Voices were heard, familiar ones, and SG-1 could be seen ascending the stairs to the briefing room, O'Neill in the lead.

"Nice of you to finally join us, Colonel," Hammond said, which made O'Neill clear his throat.

"Well, blame Harry."

Harry's head snapped up from reading the file, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Whut?" he uttered, blinking in confusion. "I don't remember secretly injecting you with something that would make you oversleep."

"No, on the contrary," O'Neill said. "Thanks to this damn super steroid, I can function perfectly with only four hours of sleep."

"And...?"

"And I got restless," O'Neill continued. "So I figured I'd go for a run, make myself tired, and go back to bed. So I ran..." He gave Harry an upset look, which Harry could understand, as O'Neill had many times expressed a love for sleep. "I ran seventy miles, Harry... in five and a half hours!"

"That's a good thing," Harry argued.

"Is it? I ran that much, came home, rested for five minutes, and was ready to run again! I can't enjoy sleeping anymore."

Harry scoffed at that.

"You only have one life, O'Neill. Stop wanting to waste it on sleep."

"But I like sleeping."

"You are the most unmotivated man I have ever met..." Harry muttered, shaking his head. "Anyway, don't we have a briefing to go through?"

"Right," Hammond said with a nod as he sat down, everyone else following. "I've read Dr. Jackson's report on his translation. Colonel, given what happened the last time you encountered something like this, I'm surprised you're so willing to take on this mission."

"So am I, sir," O'Neill said, looking kind of surprised, like he didn't know exactly what the mission was.

"Jack," Daniel prodded.

"Daniel?"

"Why wouldn't we want to gain access to the greatest repository of knowledge in the known universe, once and for all finding the lost city of the Ancients, and use their technology to save the entire galaxy from the evil oppression of the Goa'uld?"

O'Neill was quiet for a moment, then admitted, "Well, there's that."

"From the mission file I've read, it's one of those things that whips up from the walls, grabs your head, and rearranges your brain, right?" Reynolds asked.

"Sort of," Daniel said.

"Sort of?"

"It basically downloads the entire library of Ancient knowledge into a person's mind. That massive amount of data then slowly unspools into your brain, eventually taking over your consciousness entirely," Carter explained to Reynolds, who looked like he only half-understood what was explained.

"Except it wasn't meant for a physiology as primitive as ours," Daniel finished.

"Easy, fella," O'Neill spoke in a warning tone, narrowing his eyes in insult.

Daniel put up his hand and mouthed "Sorry" to O'Neill, while Harry snorted.

"What was that?" O'Neill asked, turning his gaze to Harry, who shrugged.

"Nothing, nothing... Just finding some irony in the fact that a man who doesn't like being too smart, and wants to spend half his life sleeping, would take exception to being called primitive."

"Yeah, well... It's one thing to be primitive, it's another to be called it..." O'Neill muttered.

"I thought the report said that you almost died last time, sir," Harper spoke up to O'Neill, but before the Colonel could answer, Teal'c spoke up.

"The Asgard removed the information from O'Neill's mind before he was lost to us."

"So, why don't we just shoot Thor a call, get him standing by as back-up?"

"Well, Thor is kinda busy right now," Harry said, holding up an Asgard communicator. "I took the liberty of contacting him. He claims that there is a tension rising in the Ida galaxy, doesn't want me to stick my nose in it, but it has the Asgard on edge. They have heavy patrols around the edges of the galaxy. However, Chief Archon, the leader of the Asgard High Council, has assured me that Heimdall will be on standby. He will be ready to come as soon as we call for him."

"So, if we encounter any Goa'ulds, he can show up and blow them out of the sky?" O'Neill asked hopefully, but Harry shook his head.

"Heimdall is a scientist, and his ship is a research vessel. It's not equipped with weaponry."

"Not even a tiny death ray?"

Harry narrowed his eyes. O'Neill took the hint and looked away.

"Regardless, should something happen again..." Hammond said, only to be interrupted by Daniel.

"General, no one's saying anyone should directly interface with the device. We're suggesting we extract it and bring it home for study."

"The engineering team that studied the last one of these devices you found determined nothing after six months of research."

"We believe that the device's power source was depleted after Colonel O'Neill activated it," Carter explained.

Hammond stared at Carter for a while, then looked to Harry.

"Dr. Potter. You've seen the files regarding the last repository. If you find one that works, would you be able to get anything useful out of it?"

"Without a doubt," Harry said with a nod. "And given how much it holds, it should also serve to keep me busy for a while."

Hammond nodded and looked to O'Neill.

"Recent intel suggests that Anubis has become a serious threat to dominate the rest of the Goa'uld in a very short time. We have to consider Earth is at risk now more than ever. If the knowledge contained within this device can lead us to technologies we can use to defend ourselves, we must pursue it."

O'Neill stared at Hammond, and then gave Daniel a scolding look.

"Why didn't you just say that?"

"Sorry..."

"You have a go," Hammond said as he got out of his chair. "And be careful, people."

–

SG-1, SG-3, and SG-5 exited the wormhole onto the planet P3X-439, the planet where the repository was supposed to be located.

"Reynolds," O'Neill spoke once they all found no threat in sight, and his fellow Colonel turned to face him. "Set up a defense perimeter as you see fit. Hold the Gate 'till we get back."

"You got it."

"SG-1, move out."

As they headed off, Harry reached behind his back and pulled out his plasma revolver, turning on the plasma battery and switching the safety on.

"This is unusual," O'Neill commented as they walked, glancing down at the revolver as Harry holstered it again. "Usually, the kill-bot is the only one of you who checks his weapon."

"Yeah, well, better to be safe than sorry, right?" Harry said with a smile. "The prize has never been this big before."

"Too true. Well, I don't really agree, but... well, I kinda lost my train of thought," O'Neill said, which made Harry narrow his eyes. Was O'Neill... actively trying to sound dumber than he now was? Oh, that really irritated Harry...

But at the same time, Harry had to respect O'Neill's desire to remain as he was. He was happy with that, and didn't like change.

Quite the opposite of Harry, but to each his own.

"Should be just over this hill, sir," Carter said as they headed up a grassy hill.

When they reached the top, Harry's eyebrows shot up at the sight that welcomed them. There was an amazing colonnade of Ancient design surrounding a massive statue, reaching high into the sky. The statue was what appeared to be a male figure sitting upon a throne of some sort. His head and part of one shoulder had crumbled to the ground, deteriorating with age.

"Well, Frank's weapon of choice today is a sniper," Harry told O'Neill, patting him on the back. "You're the Colonel, where would be the best place for him to take up a sniper position?"

"He should be placed up high," O'Neill said, pointing to the statue. "Could he-" He interrupted himself and turned to Frank. "Could you get on top of that? Should give you a nice field of view."

"_Indeed, meatbag. I can, naturally, climb the statue and take up position. I shall keep watch for any approaching enemies, with your permission, Master._"

"Do it, Frank."

"_Understood._"

Frank bowed his head, then ran off at an impossible speed toward the statue, as SG-1 started walking toward it. He reached the statue and leapt into the air, slamming his fingertips into the stone, creating his own handholds as he climbed all the way up to the neck of the statue.

Twenty minutes later, Daniel and Harry were looking over the pillars of the colonnade, all of which had inscriptions in Ancient on them, Carter was checking the place for unusual readings, Teal'c was standing guard, and O'Neill was sitting outside in the grass, just lounging.

"You know, we've searched this place up and down," O'Neill commented, sounding bored.

"I know," Daniel said without taking his eyes off the pillar.

"We could have Goa'uld on our collective asses any minute now."

Daniel looked around the pillar to give O'Neill a tired look.

"I know," he said and looked back to the inscriptions. "According to the text on this column, it's inside."

"Inside, you say?" O'Neill muttered as he got up and walked over to Daniel. "There is no 'inside'. There's just a whole lotta outside."

"I know," Daniel said for a third time, taking out his notebook and checking it. "Harry, come give me a second opinion."

Harry moved away from his pillar to Daniel's side, looking at the series of symbols the archaeologist was pointing out.

"Look, doesn't this make references to the repository being inside?"

"Depends on your definition of inside," Harry said with a hum. "I mean, 'Intu' isn't inside as in indoors, but rather within."

"I know I have a super brain now, but what's the difference?" O'Neill asked, looking nonplussed.

"The difference is that they don't mean that it's inside like you could just open a door and enter a room. They mean that it's literally inside the wall," Harry explained.

"I think he's right," Carter spoke up, scanning a plain wall with no markings on it. "I'm getting some strange readings coming from here."

"If that's the case, then it should be..." Daniel muttered, raising his hand and pressing a marking, then moving his hand down and pressing another.

The wall Carter was suddenly suddenly flashed, and a strange, metallic circle with a dark window in the center appeared on it.

"Look out," O'Neill said cautiously as both he and Carter jumped back in surprise.

"Ah, here we go," Harry said with interest as he looked over the device, while O'Neill radioed Reynolds.

"Reynolds, come in."

"_Go ahead._"

"Yeah, we got something here, stand by."

"_All clear for the moment._"

"Now we just have to figure out how to get this thing out of the wall," Carter said as Harry took a few steps toward the repository, which grew slightly toward him, protruding slightly further from the wall.

"Damn," O'Neill muttered when Harry leaned back to avoid getting his head caught in the thing.

"Careful," Carter said cautiously.

"Alright, one more time, why are we doing this?" O'Neill said. "Why?"

"For science," Harry said simply, leaning forward again. He reached up and touched the sides of the device without putting his head any closer.

"_Master,_" came Frank's voice over the radio. "_My sensors are picking up multiple enemies incoming. Seven gliders, and two Al'kesh bombers._"

"_SG-1, we have incoming,_" came Reynold's voice only a second after.

"Alright, Frank," Harry spoke into his radio. "The Al'kesh and gliders are weak enough that you should be able to use the high-velocity plasma shots."

"_Understood, Master. Ready to fire on your command._"

"Fire whenever you have a shot."

There was no response. Instead, Harry looked out past the columns to see a death glider speeding toward them. A blue plasma blast came from up high, shooting through the air so quickly that within a millisecond, the plasma blast had punched through the glider's cockpit, without a doubt killing the pilot, as the glider went into a nose dive, crashing into the ground.

"Alright, let's go," O'Neill said, readying his weapon.

"Jack, we can't just leave," Daniel protested.

"Daniel-"

"We must not let this fall into the hands of Anubis," Teal'c agreed.

"Too true!" Harry said, a grin suddenly appearing on his face. "I have an idea!"

He saw the looks on everyone's faces. They knew what he was about to do. He hated the idea of doing this, but he was also kind of looking forward to it. So what if it was cheating? Saving the world with that knowledge would grant him some leniency when it came to his work.

Therefore, Harry took off his glasses, and walked right up to the repository, which extended further out, two hand-like attachments shooting out to wrap around his head.

All outside sound was cut out as soon as the light inside the repository was activated, shining into his eyes. Instead, a high-pitched noise filled the silence, and Harry found himself gripping the device in shock. He felt pain during this process. Due to his ability to disconnect his sense of pain, he was unused to it, and it shocked him so much that his first reaction had been to pull away. Unfortunately, the device held him tightly in place.

Then again, once he got over the pain and started thinking rationally, he really had no idea what the effects on his brain might have been if he interrupted the download.

The light suddenly cut out, and so did the sound, and the device let go of the weak-kneed Harry, letting him sink to the ground.

"Harry!" Carter yelled as she rushed up to him.

"Wow..." Harry muttered, screwing his eyes shut and taking a few deep breaths. "That... was intense..."

"_Master!_" Harry heard Frank's voice from behind, making him turn around to see the AI standing there, sniper rifle in his hands.

"Frank, I didn't give the order to leave your post, did I?"

"_No, Master, but as you know, one of my prime directives compel me to return to your side if you are too damaged to move. My sensors discovered some damage to your brain, and I was under the assumption that you were unable to speak. Therefore, my prime directive forced me to abandon my post._"

"Not damaged, just... full..." Harry muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose for a few moments, before putting on his glasses again. "Alright, it's all done. Let's head back."

–

Harry now found himself sitting in the infirmary, an unlit cigarette in his mouth as Fraiser, now back to work, shone a light into his eye.

"Well, you seem in good condition. Then again, so did Colonel O'Neill, at first. I can't believe you willingly put your head in that thing..." she muttered, pocketing the flashlight. "Are you sure you feel fine?"

"Yeah, I feel great," Harry said with a smile. "I just feel kinda... full... right now. My brain is in the process of assimilating as much as it can, but there's a lot to assimilate."

"Well, I am still going to need to do a complete scan of your brain. Now, I need you to tell me what this is," Fraiser said, then held up her hand, palm facing Harry.

"Wait, I know this one," Harry said, rubbing his chin in thought. "I think that's what is called... a hand, if I'm not mistaken."

"I know what it is. Care to tell me what has happened to it?"

Harry narrowed his eyes at the hand, scrutinizing the palm.

"Er... It looks fine to me."

"Exactly. After putting it on a scalding hot stove, it shouldn't be fine, Harry," Fraiser said, narrowing her eyes as well. "Why is it fine?"

"Why did you put your hand on a scalding hot stove?"

"I wasn't paying attention when I was talking to Cassandra, and I leaned against the stove. I felt some warmth under my hand, but thought nothing of it, since it didn't bother me," Fraiser said, lowering her hand to look at it herself. "It was only when Cassandra entered the kitchen and told me my hand was smoking that I realized where I had put it. But there were no injuries."

"Well, naturally," Harry said with a shrug. "Fire and heat are cleansing for your body right now. You can still feel warmth, as you've noticed, but you will never have to worry about being set on fire or burning yourself ever again."

"What do you mean? I thought you said that fire was what recreated me?" Fraiser muttered, furrowing her brow in confusion.

"That was _after_ you had died. The... Hm... How to explain this?" Harry said as he lit the cigarette. "Think of it as the genes having a sort of emergency system, to be activated once the body starts deteriorating. This, of course, includes becoming deathly ill. The cells didn't activate upon being injected into your body. Hence why someone else had to start the cremation process."

Fraiser sighed upon hearing that. Without a doubt, that was something she had been afraid of.

"Harry, I really am grateful that you brought me back from the dead, but I don't want to be immortal. I don't want to see my friends grow old and die, while I just turn back into an infant whenever it happens to me..."

Harry hummed at that and rubbed his chin.

"I... guess you're right about that. It's not the kind of life I'd want, either."

"Oh, wow..." Fraiser uttered in surprise. "_You_ don't want to be immortal?"

"Don't be silly, of course I do," Harry said, waving her off. "What I don't want, however, is to be turned into an infant if I suddenly get my neck broken, or something. No, I'll probably work on something that will make me ageless. After I create something that will effectively kill the phoenix cells in your body."

"Well, you will have to be back here in a few hours for your brain scans."

Harry grumbled to himself as he hopped off the bed and put on his lab coat.

"Maybe."

"No, not maybe. As your doctor, I'm ordering you to come here in a few hours for your damn scans."

Fraiser was giving him a very forceful glare. Unfortunately for her, such things didn't really affect Harry, who just waved at her and walked off, happily puffing on his cigarette.

Harry didn't go to his lab, however. Instead, he headed toward the briefing room, where he was sure that Hammond was. After all, he didn't really feel like staying at the SGC right now, since it would be somewhat of a stressful time for him.

As he made his way up the stairs, he heard Carter's voice saying, "...during the transformation process, he'll become aware of the information we're looking for."

"And then?" came Hammond's voice.

"Then, it will overwhelm his nervous system, and Harry will-"

"Woah, now!" Harry said as he reached the top of the stairs, making his presence known. "Let's not get too excited about the prospect of my death. I'm not nearly ready for that yet. I'm planning on living a long and healthy life, and my greatest friend will not be the one responsible for my death."

"Your...?" Daniel muttered in confusion, standing with Carter and Hammond, along with Teal'c and O'Neill.

"Knowledge," Harry elaborated. "Listen, I wouldn't have put my head in that thing if I didn't think there was a chance I could absorb all of this. I mean, according to Oma, I'm the closest thing in existence right now to a real Ancient, so my brain should be a bit more compatible, right?"

"You should be in the infirmary, Doctor," Hammond said sternly, which made Harry snort.

"Yeah, right. You all believe that these are my last days alive, and if that's true, do you really think I'd spend them there? I like Janet, but not enough for that."

He smiled at the group, who all seemed uncomfortable at the topic of his death. Then he turned to Hammond.

"So, and I'm actually asking permission this time, I'd like to take the weekend off. You know, cuddle with my girls, have a couple of heart-to-hearts with my family, and so on."

"When it happened to Colonel O'Neill, it did take a couple of days before we noticed any change in the Colonel's behavior," Carter supplied, probably trying to convince Hammond to give Harry leave.

Hammond contemplated for only a second before he nodded.

"Permission granted," he said. "After all, even if I refused, you'd still leave. It's best if I give you permission."

"Ben faci," Harry said, nodding appreciatively.

He was met with curious stares, which made him grin. He loved that reaction, after all.

"It means 'Thank you,'" he explained. "I've been working on assimilating the language first of all."

Giving a lazy salute, Harry walked off.

–

Stars exploded in front of Harry's eyes, and his hands shot up to clutch at his nose.

"Ow!"

"You tit!" Tonks yelled, rubbing her fist. "How could you do something like that?!"

Harry grumbled as he straightened up, gingerly touching his nose to make sure it wasn't broken. Luckily, it wasn't.

"Well, I-"

"I admit, that was very unlike you, Harry," Freya spoke up from the couch in the living room of their flat. "This could kill you. Did you not think about us?"

"Nym, Anise and Freya..." Harry muttered, shaking his head. "What makes you two think this is going to kill me?"

"Harry, your brain is impressive, but the amount of knowledge stored in the Repository of the Ancients..." Freya broke off, shaking her head. She didn't seem to want to finish the sentence.

"But I have a failsafe," Harry said, reaching up and tapping his bolt. "If the information were to overflow, I could store it in the memory crystals in my bolt, and then go through it at my leisure."

"Alright, that makes no sense whatsoever to me, but still, you could..." Tonks twitched and emphasized her final word with a hard punch to Harry's chest, "..._die_!"

"Well, if that happens," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a capped syringe, "give this to Carter, have her inject me with it, then tell her to start the cremation."

Tonks took the syringe and looked at it. Then, she screwed her eyes shut as a look of realization appeared on her face.

"That's why you went back to England."

"Yup."

"You have come up with a way to make a human phoenix..."

"Yup."

Tonks opened her eyes to give Harry a surprisingly calm look. Then, the calm look disappeared, and she looked mad again, once more punching Harry in the chest.

"_You could die_!"

"_Silly meatbag,_" Frank spoke up from the corner of the living room. "_The Master would never allow himself to be terminated by such a trivial thing._"

"What he said," Harry said, jutting his thumb in Frank's direction. When he saw Tonks' dangerous look, he felt the need to add, "Only, you know, without the 'silly meatbag' comment..."

He gave a wide grin as he put his hands on Tonks' shoulders.

"Nym, I'm not going to die. You know me." Seeing that Tonks still looked skeptical, Harry looked to Freya. "Freya, you know me, too."

"I admit that I am greatly upset that you would do such a thing, Harry," Freya said softly, glancing away. "Anise, while eager to find out what sort of knowledge was downloaded, agrees with me."

"Well, I'm sorry about that, but if I really am going to die, there is no manner I'd rather die in, than the pursuit of knowledge."

Tonks gritted her teeth and once more punched Harry in the chest.

"Why the hell are you so calm about this?!" she yelled angrily. "I feel like I'm overreacting here!"

"Well..."

"I'm not overreacting when it comes to the possibility of your death!"

Harry smiled softly at the huffing Tonks, whose hair was cycling through all the colors of the rainbow, a sign that her emotional state was shot to hell.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked gently, which made her sigh.

"Yes, please..."

Five hours later found Harry sitting in the middle of the couch, with Anise on his right side, and Tonks on his left. Both women were asleep, and leaning against his shoulders. Harry reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Are you experiencing a headache, Master?" Frank asked, to which Harry nodded.

"Yeah... There's a lot of knowledge that's unspooling in my brain right now," he muttered, rising from the couch. A thump was heard, making him look back to see that Tonks and Anise had tipped toward each other, their heads impacting with each other rather hard. Luckily, Harry's moonshine was strong enough that he could've performed open heart surgery on them without anesthetics, and they still wouldn't wake up.

There was a knock on the door, and Harry made his way to it, opening it to show Carter standing outside in civilian clothing, a black skirt, a white, flower-patterned top, and a denim jacket.

"Evening," Harry greeted with a nod.

"Evening," Carter said awkwardly. She looked at the watch on her wrist. "Er, it's kinda late, sorry. I hope I didn't wake you?"

"Not at all," Harry said, stepping to the side. "Come on in."

"Thanks," Carter said, stepping into the flat. "Er, where's Anise, and...?"

"Anise and Nym are in the living room, sleeping," Harry said, gesturing for the doorway to the kitchen. "If you wanna talk, let's talk in here."

Carter nodded, and the two made their way into the kitchen.

"Did General Hammond send you to check up on me?"

"No," Carter said with a shake of her head. "It's funny, really, I, um, I was out driving... you know, in my car-"

"I think that's what one usually drives, yes."

"Yeah, and I, um, I drove here," Carter said with a shrug and a horrible attempt at a laugh, which just sounded uncomfortable, resulting in an awkward pause. "Yeah..."

"Tea?" Harry asked in an attempt to ease the tension.

"Yes, please."

"I'd probably have coffee, but I'm sorry to say that I'm disgustingly English," Harry said with a small grin as he walked over to the kitchen counter to prepare the tea.

Within minutes, Harry and Carter were sitting at the kitchen table, each nursing a cup of tea. Carter was looking around, her eyes landing on a framed picture on the table, picking it up and looking it over.

It was a picture of Harry, Adrian, Hermione, and Tonks. The picture had been taken without their knowledge at a dinner table. Harry and Tonks were on one side, Harry turning his bolt while staring at Tonks with his usual half-lidded stare and a small smile on his face, while Adrian had his eyes screwed shut and his mouth open in a laugh. Harry remembered that moment well. Tonks had just claimed that if they ever had children, she was sure they would be born with stitches. Hence why Hermione had an uncomfortable look on her face in the picture, like she didn't know whether to laugh or not.

"I didn't know you had a brother," Carter said, looking it over.

"Adrian is my clone, if you want to get technical."

Carter's head snapped up to give Harry an incredulous look.

"C-Clone?"

"I got the idea when I was fourteen, but didn't create him until I was fifteen," Harry said with a shrug.

"How could you create a clone?" Carter asked in shock. "Here on earth, I mean?"

"My biological energy permits me to manipulate matter," Harry said, smiling. "I wasn't too skilled at it back then, so I had to use pig flesh, which was much easier to convert to human flesh."

"You created a clone... when you were fifteen..." Carter muttered, staring at the picture. "How the...?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it, actually," Harry said with a shrug.

There was another knock on the door, but Harry didn't have to get up for this, as Frank was the one who opened it. Within moments, O'Neill, Daniel, and Teal'c entered the kitchen, all dressed in civilian clothing.

"Hi," Harry said, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, hi," Daniel said, looking from Harry to Carter. "Are we... interrupting something?"

"Not really. What are you doing here?"

"Uh, well, uh, it's a funny story, actually," Daniel said, clearing his throat. "Um, we were driving by, and we saw Sam's car outside, and, um, um..."

"O'Neill?" Harry said as Daniel looked for something to say.

"Daniel was worried and suggested we come by," O'Neill explained, to which Harry nodded in understanding. "And Teal'c suggested we bring doughnuts."

"Really?" Harry asked in surprised.

"Well, he didn't really say it. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, I asked, and he nodded."

"That wasn't such a funny story, though."

"Blame Daniel. Got a beer?"

"Probably," Harry said, gesturing for the refrigerator. "Help yourself."

Twenty minutes later found Harry and the rest of SG-1 sitting in the living room. Tonks and Anise had been carried into the bedroom, and beers had been opened for everyone.

"I still think you guys are taking this too seriously," Harry muttered, shaking his head. "I-"

Harry was interrupted by a knock on the door. He muttered, "Well, aren't I the popular one today," and got up, heading for the door and opening it, to find none other than General Hammond standing outside, also dressed in civilian clothing.

"General," Harry greeted.

"Doctor," Hammond greeted with a nod. "I know it's late. Is this a bad time?"

"Not really," Harry said, moving out of the way. "I'll get you a chair."

As Harry went into the kitchen to get a chair, he heard Carter utter, "Sir," as Hammond entered the living room.

"At ease, Major, at ease," Hammond urged when Harry came back, setting down a kitchen chair behind Hammond.

"There you go, General."

"Glad to find you all here," Hammond said, and looked about to continue, when he spotted the beer bottles on the table. "You wouldn't happen to have another one of those?"

"Undoubtedly," Harry said, heading back into the kitchen to get a beer. "Ibi," he said as he came back and handed it to Hammond, who blinked up at him.

"What?"

"I said, 'There.'"

"Oh, thank you," Hammond said as he took the beer, staring at it for a moment. Then, as Harry sat down in the sofa next to Carter, he said, "I've been relieved of command."

There was a long pause, not a sound made, as everyone gave Hammond shocked looks.

"What?" O'Neill uttered quietly.

"Again?" Harry asked.

"The President has effectively shut down the SGC for a three-month review process," Hammond explained. "He has also expressed a great desire to meet you, Dr. Potter. I recommend you agree to it."

"Three months?" Daniel asked in shock.

"During which time a newly formed government department will take the place of Stargate Command."

"Oh, wow..." Harry muttered, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"What's wrong?" Carter asked, giving Harry a look of concern.

"I'm just surprised that politics are able to give me a bigger headache than all the collected knowledge of the Ancients," Harry muttered.

"Sir, we don't have much time," Carter said, gesturing for Harry.

"How could this happen?" Teal'c wanted to know.

"Kinsey," Daniel concluded, which made O'Neill sigh in frustration.

"Does anyone know anyone who voted for those two shrubs?"

"I've known President Hayes for a long time," Hammond said. "He's a good man."

"Despite his taste in running mates, maybe."

"Robert Kinsey brought in a lot of campaign financing, and for all we know, he may have used his knowledge of the Stargate as leverage to get himself a place on the ticket. It doesn't matter now."

"What, we're just going to lie down for this?" Daniel asked in surprise."

"Now, we've been in this situation before," O'Neill said.

"No, this time it's different," Hammond said with a shake of his head.

"Usually, I would have been able to call the PM," Harry said, rubbing his chin. "He would have been able to put some pressure on the President on my behalf, but even if he wanted to, he'd have nothing to pressure him with, as I'm no longer an official citizen of earth."

"Who's-" Carter started, but was interrupted when the sound of an opening door was heard.

Tonks came into the living room, wearing nothing but a pink thong, rubbing her eyes, which were almost completely closed. Everyone save for Harry stared in shock as she walked across the living room, to the armchair to the right of the sofa, in which O'Neill was sitting. She reached across the armchair toward a small table next to the sofa, to pick up a pocket book that was laying there, her breasts hovering just in front of O'Neill's wide eyes.

Once she had grabbed the book, she wordlessly made her way back into the bedroom, so tired that she barely had the energy to lift her feet as she walked.

"That..." O'Neill muttered.

"That was Nym," Harry explained.

"Modest girl..."

"Yeah, she's one-of-a-kind."

"I..." Daniel cleared his throat. "What, uh, what were we talking about again?"

"Hammond being relieved of command," Harry, the only one save for Teal'c (not that one could tell with Teal'c) who hadn't gone completely slack-jawed at the sight of Tonks, informed them, which caused Carter to shake her head to clear it, looking to Hammond again, red-faced.

"Who, uh, who's replacing you, sir?"

"Her name is Dr. Elizabeth Weir," Hammond said, having collected himself much faster than everyone else.

"Civilian?" O'Neill asked in surprise.

"I've heard of her," Daniel spoke up. "She's, um, an expert in international politics. She, er, she mediates top-level negotiations for the UN. I actually referenced some of her work when I drafted the first treaty with the Tok'ra."

"All I know is I've been ordered to Washington to discuss reassignment," Hammond said. "I leave tomorrow. As far as I know, you are all to report to work as scheduled on Monday."

"Something must be done," Teal'c said seriously, even more seriously than usual.

"I have my orders. Besides, I have a feeling that I may be able to do more about this from Washington than I can here."

"And in the meantime?" Carter asked.

"You'll just have to plead your case to the new administration. I have every confidence in you people."

"Even me?" Harry asked in surprise.

Hammond turned to look at Harry, a small smile on his face.

"I'd be pretty stupid to doubt you now, even after all you've done, Dr. Potter."

–

**End of chapter twenty-nine! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry meets not only Dr. Elizabeth Weir, but also meets the PotUS, and has a run-in with Vice-President Kinsey!**


	30. Chapter 30

**ZnK here with chapter thirty! Happy New Year, boys and girls of all ages! I'm sorry if this chapter seems a bit rushed! I wanted to give you guys a New Year's present, so I hurried to the best of my abilities to type this up before heading off to celebrate! ****In this chapter, Harry pokes Kinsey, miffs Weir, flusters Carter, and saves the day... again!**

–

President Henry Hayes opened the doors to his office in the White House, only to find himself staring at someone who he was sure hadn't been there when he left.

Dr. Harry Potter, his hands tucked into the pockets of his lab coat, turned to face him, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"President Hayes," Harry greeted with a nod. "I hear you have been wanting to speak to me?"

"Dr. Potter..." Hayes muttered, narrowing his eyes as he slowly closed the door behind him. "How did you get in here?"

"Magic," Harry said with a grin. "Given how the Statute of Secrecy established by the International Confederation of Wizard is written, the leaders of the non-magical population must be made aware of the existence of magic by the leaders of the magical population. I am certain that Minister Davis showed up here a couple of days ago to fill you in?"

"Let me get this straight..." Hayes said slowly, walking up to Harry. "Not only are you part of the most top-secret operation in the United States, but you are also a wizard?"

"Indeed I am," Harry said, nodding. He held out his hand, and Hayes shook it.

"General Hammond told me that you were supposed to be under a sort of house-arrest?"

"Yeah, well, I have never been too good at doing what I'm told, unless I actually want to do it," Harry said with a shrug. "He also told me that you wanted to meet with me?"

"Yes," Hayes said as he headed over to one of the sofas in the center of the oval office, sitting down. "Please, have a seat."

Harry hummed in agreement as he sat down in the sofa across from Hayes.

"I have been informed that you have had some kind of information downloaded into your brain," Hayes said. "Something that is going to help us?"

"Mm, probably," Harry said with a nod.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's a lot of information. It's like trying to locate a specific straw in a Mt. Everest of grass."

"That does sound like a lot..."

"Enough to give even a man like me a considerable headache," Harry said, giving the President another nod. "Was there a specific reason why you wanted to meet with me?"

"You're neutral."

"Excuse me?"

"From what General Hammond has told me, you are no longer a citizen of this planet. You're a member of this... Asgard people, correct?" Hayes asked, to which Harry nodded again. "Well, that makes you a bit impartial, doesn't it? You're a member of a people who are the allies of earth as a whole, not just a single country. Taking advice from you, and heeding them if they are good, shouldn't be put under too much scrutiny, especially when your intelligence is added to the equation."

"Heh, you're smarter than you appear."

"Better than appearing smarter than you are," Hayes said with a shrug.

There was a knock on the door, and one of Hayes' aides came in.

"Mr. President, General Hammond."

"Show him in," Hayes said.

Hammond stepped into the office, wearing his full uniform, rather than just the sleeveless shirt he tended to wear at the SGC. He was carrying a briefcase, and smiled upon seeing Hayes.

"General George Hammond!" Hayes said, getting up and holding out his hand for Hammond to shake, which he did.

"Mr. President."

"I think it was Lieutenant, last time we spoke, wasn't it?"

"For both of us. That was a lot of hair ago, sir."

"Oh, wow, was that a joke, General?" Harry spoke up, while Hayes laughed. Only now did Hammond notice him, his eyes widening.

"Dr. Potter? I thought you were supposed to be confined to the SGC?"

"I got bored," Harry said with a shrug. He looked to Hayes. "Well, you seem busy. Besides, I get this feeling that I might be needed at the SGC right now. Take care of yourself, General. Mr. President."

With that, Harry Apparated away with a crack.

–

"Three days from today is a Thursday," Harry heard O'Neill's voice as he made his way up the stairs to the briefing room. "Thursday's not good for us."

"Agreed, I'm having dinner with the family," Harry said as he reached the top of the stairs to find SG-1 standing by the briefing room table with none other than Bra'tac. "So, what's happening on Thursday?"

"Dr. Potter," Bra'tac greeted with a bow of his head. "I bring word from Jaffa loyal to our cause. Anubis will be here in three days with the full force of his fleet."

Harry uttered a "Hurhmm..." at that, then nodded and said, "True, Thursday isn't good for us."

"Why now?" Carter asked, furrowing her brow thoughtfully.

"Anubis believes that we know the location of the Lost City," Teal'c said.

"We don't," Carter said.

"Not yet," O'Neill said with a gesture for Harry.

"Yeah, but he doesn't know that we don't know," Daniel said. Harry opened his mouth to speak, but just then, now Vice-President Kinsey entered the briefing room, with a woman that Harry recognized as Dr. Elizabeth Weir, and an aide.

"Well, some people just don't know when to leave," Kinsey said, shaking his head.

"Truer words have never been spoken," Harry said, giving Kinsey a pointed look, timing it perfectly with the turning of his bolt. Feeling inspired by Kinsey's presence, he reached into his pockets and pulled out a couple of spare parts that he had taken from the Sujan.

"Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, Dr. Potter, Teal'c," Weir said, greeting SG-1 with a nod, ignoring the heated glare Kinsey was giving Harry. "I know these are strange circumstances to be meeting for the first time."

"And you are...?" O'Neill asked.

"I am Dr. Elizabeth Weir, Colonel."

"You can just call her your one hope of ever stepping through the Stargate again," Kinsey said, sounding incredibly happy at the thought of SG-1 never going on another offworld mission again, something that gave Harry even more inspiration.

"Bit of a mouthful," O'Neill quipped simply.

"I know I'm playing catch-up, but, uh, I understand time is short," Weir said, which made O'Neill smile.

"Actually, it's all relative, Ma'am. Carter could explain it better, if we had more time."

Harry had to snort at that statement as he placed an Asgard power crystal into the oval metal shell in his hand. Next, he inserted two nails which had gotten their tips snipped off.

"Shall we have a seat, then?" Weir asked, and everyone did as suggested. "Obviously, this is a matter of grave importance."

"She's quick," O'Neill said, sounding impressed.

"Which is why I've taken it upon myself to come on down and hear what Mr. Bra'tac has to say personally."

"_Master_ Bra'tac," O'Neill corrected. "_Master_."

"I beg your pardon," Kinsey almost hissed, clearly not meaning it. "So, you believe this Goa'uld Anubis is planning to attack?"

"You may be certain of it," Bra'tac said with a nod.

"I'll say this, the timing is impeccable," Kinsey said, shaking his head. "The moment we suspend Stargate operations, you pull this out of your hat."

"Or maybe you just have really bad timing, Cunty," Harry commented. "_I'm starting to get sick of your presence. If it were up to me, I'd cut you into thousands of pieces and scatter you across the galaxy_."

He was met with complete silence, and he looked up to see that everyone was staring at him in surprise.

"What?"

"You just spoke Ancient," Daniel explained.

"I know. I just thought Cunty would get really upset, and we'd be here for days listening to his bitching if I said it in English."

Kinsey turned an interesting shade of red at that, bordering on Vernon's trademark puce, while O'Neill, Carter, and Daniel struggled to suppress their smiles.

"Mr. _Vice_-President," O'Neill said, putting great emphasis on the 'Vice,' "if you're suggesting that we'd make something like this up-"

"Yes, Colonel, that's exactly what I'm suggesting," Kinsey said, raising his voice to show that Harry's comments had gotten to him.

"Yes, well, that is exactly what we do!" O'Neill said, and Harry noticed that he was looking increasingly annoyed. "We sit around on our fat asses and create scenarios that put the planet at risk. That's exactly what we do."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd do just about anything..."

"Alright, that's about enough," Harry said as he placed the top part of the shell onto the device in his hand. The device had two buttons. When he pressed the top button, the two snipped nails shot out of the device like the application electrodes on a taser. Then, he pushed the bottom button and reached out, touching Kinsey with the device on the upper arm. A burst of white light flashed between the device and Kinsey, and suddenly the Vice-President fell out of his chair, slumping to the ground as he went limp like a boned fish.

"Stunner," Harry informed his team as he pressed the top button again, causing the nails to recede back into the device, before tossing it to O'Neill. "Put that in your pocket, enjoy it. A gift, if you will."

"Dr. Potter!" Weir exclaimed, her eyes wide as she shot to her feet. "What...?"

"Don't worry, he'll be fine within an hour or two," Harry said, waving her off. "I just didn't feel like dealing with him anymore. I have an incredible headache as it is."

"I can't say I'm upset about this development," O'Neill commented, looking from the device to Kinsey, then to Weir. "I'm happy to continue this without him."

"Well, assuming-"

"Crysteri," Harry spoke up, getting a set of nonplussed looks from the other occupants of the table. "That's it. _Crysteri_!"

"Alright..." O'Neill said slowly. "Why don't you pretend you're talking to people who don't speak fluent Ancient?"

"Crysteri, I've never heard of that word," Daniel said.

"Well, it's not a word that was ever translated into Latin," Harry said, rising from his chair. He stood there for a moment, completely still, his eyes narrowing and widening now and then. "I... I gotta go."

With that, he rushed off, putting a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it. Then, he fished an Asgard communicator out of his pocket.

"Heimdall!"

There was a few moments of silence, and then Heimdall's voice was heard saying, "_Oh, Dr. Potter! What a pleasure! What can I help you with?_"

"I will be sending Aceso aboard the Sujan, Heimdall," Harry said. "It would be nice if you could meet her near the edge of Ida so she doesn't have to go too far. I need some parts."

"_Such as?_"

"Aceso will have the full list with her. I need lots of things, I need parts, I need a crystal purifier, a modifier... Damn it, there's no time! Just meet her, alright?"

"_Certainly, Dr. Potter! It sounds urgent, after all! I shall arrange a meeting spot with Aceso as soon as she contacts me._"

"Good. Take care."

Harry pocketed the crystal again, and continued rushing down the corridor.

–

Four hours later, Harry was in his lab, which was even messier than usual. Parts were littering the floors and all the desks. The ashtray next to him had a large amount of cigarettes in it, some half-smoked, some completely, some hardly even lit, and some that hadn't even been put out, instead smoking faintly, indicating that they hadn't even been lit properly.

A knock was heard on the door, to which he responded with a "Mhm?"

The door opened, showing Dr. Weir, who stepped inside with wide eyes.

"Uh, wow... I wasn't expecting a scientist's lab to look like a mechanics shop..." she said in a bad attempt at humor.

"What can I do for you, Dr. Weir?" Harry asked as he tinkered with picking a naquadah generator apart.

"Well, I realized that we haven't really been formally introduced," Weir said, clearing her throat. "I guess I just wanted to get to know the genius behind most of the advancements made here in the last couple of years. I hear you're even the mastermind behind the design of the Prometheus?"

"Yeah, that's me," Harry said shortly, getting up and scratching his head. He reached up and pushed a button on his bolt. "Aceso, how's it coming?"

"Master, I am pleased to announce that I have reached my destination. Heimdall is expected to arrive within three minutes," came Aceso's voice directly into his head. "I shall contact you when the delivery has been made."

"Good, good. Uh..." Harry looked around, finding the part he needed with an "Ah!" and picking it up, bringing it back to the naquadah generator.

"What, exactly, is Crysteri?" Weir asked curiously.

"I'll let you know when it's finished," Harry said, going back to his tinkering.

"Ah. Yes, I read that Colonel O'Neill tended to do things without knowing what exactly he was doing when he-"

"No, I know exactly what Crysteri is, and what it does," Harry interrupted. "I'm just not used to revealing such things until my work is done."

"Well, from what I understand, you are the only one who possesses the knowledge we need to survive this," Weir said. "And as the leader of Stargate Command, I think I'm entitled to find out what you're doing."

Harry gave an audible snort and straightened up, turning to look at Weir with an amused look on his face.

"Wow, you really haven't been here long, have you?" he said with a chuckle. "Listen, Dr. Weir, I don't want there to be any misunderstandings between us, so I will say this as clearly as I can right now so you won't be shocked later." He cleared his throat and leaned forward. "Even if you were the Supreme Commander of Earth, I still wouldn't a toss about what you think you're entitled. I do what I want, when I want, simply because I want it. And no one can tell me what to do."

"How the hell could you have been kept around this long?" Weir asked in surprise. "Especially with an attitude like that?"

"I've befriended a few of the people here, and if they ask for help, I consider it. Oftentimes I help. However, I also think that owning all this spectacular technology, and merely renting it to earth, has earned me considerable leniency."

"Do you have something against me, Doctor?"

"Oh, don't worry, it's nothing personal," Harry said, shaking his head. "I just liked having Hammond in charge, and I'm a bit miffed that he's gone. The last time we had a change in leadership, the new commander was a tosser. Besides, Hammond is a good man. I consider him something of a friend. He even visited me the other day when everyone thought this was gonna kill me."

"Isn't it?"

"I'm too good to die from something like this," Harry said, waving her off.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a problem with arrogance, Doctor?" Weir asked, to which Harry gave a bark of laughter.

"All the time! Unfortunately, I think too highly of myself to accept criticism. I guess that's the arrogance at it's finest. With a pinch of narcissism, perhaps."

Weir narrowed her eyes at him, giving Harry a scrutinizing look.

"I think you're trying to rile me up, Doctor."

"Oh, wow," Harry said with a small smile. "You're the first one who's ever gotten that... Well, save for my old headmaster, but he's a brilliant old codger, so he doesn't count."

Weir nodded slowly, probably because she couldn't think of anything else to say or do.

"Well, Harry Potter," Harry said, holding out his hand for Weir to shake, which she did.

"Elizabeth Weir."

"Well, now that we've been formally introduced..." Harry trailed off and gestured for Weir to leave.

"Actually, I-"

"Ah!" Harry interrupted warningly with a shake of his head.

"Listen-"

"No!" Harry said, deeming the conversation over. Therefore, he reached under the bench, and picked up his portable beam transporter, setting it down on the bench after brushing some scrap metal out of the way.

"Dr. Pott-"

This time, Harry didn't need to speak to interrupt Weir, instead just giving her a glare as he moved crystals around on the transporter. Then, he grinned when he saw Weir disappear in a flash of white light.

It wasn't even a minute later when Carter poked her head into Harry's lab, looking around.

"Did my eyes play tricks on me, or did a light just flash in here?"

"Oh, yeah, I just beamed Dr. Weir out of here."

Carter blinked at that.

"Did she agree to it?"

"Nope."

"Well, I came by to-"

Harry held up a hand for silence as Aceso's voice was heard in his head.

"_Master, the delivery has been made, and I am returning to earth. I shall beam the parts directly to your lab before landing the ship._"

"Good. I'll see you when you get here, Aceso."

"_Yes, Master._"

Harry nodded to himself, then looked to Carter.

"You were saying?"

"Oh, I just came by to check on you," Carter said, clearing her throat. "I mean, I just..."

"You were worried?" Harry asked.

"Harry, you could die," Carter said with a sigh. "I don't want you to die."

"Well, that's good, because I don't want to die. As such, I will not die."

"What gives you this confidence?"

"Sam, my brain is the greatest asset at my disposal," Harry said with a grin as he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "I refuse to believe that it could possibly fail me at such a crucial moment. But I'm glad you care."

"Are you sure you're fine?" Carter asked, to which Harry nodded.

"Yeah. I've just got a bit of a headache. However, my mind is organized. I'm basically putting as much as I can into the memory crystals, and the rest will be put in a kind of storage in my head. That way I won't be actively thinking about it. I can handle this, Sam."

Carter nodded slowly, but Harry could tell she was still a bit doubtful. Apparently deciding to change the subject, she gestured for what Harry was building.

"What's this?"

"It's a converter," Harry said. "Or it will be soon. It converts raw metal into crystals. Power crystals, to be exact. With the crystal purifier and the modifier I had Heimdall deliver to Aceso, I will be able to create a Crysteri."

"What is that, by the way?"

"A power source," Harry said with a grin. "Possibly the cleanest power source you will ever come across. In my personal opinion, it's probably one of the most brilliant inventions of the Ancients. A Crysteri houses a pocket of subspace-time known as the quantum foam. Zero point energy is extracted from this pocket until it reaches maximum entropy."

"Zero point energy?" Carter asked in surprise. "I didn't know there was anything capable of harnessing that..."

"Well, now you do."

"How much power can it generate?"

"It's capable of functioning at an output of between a hundred and two hundred Terawatts for thousands of years," Harry explained.

"Oh, wow..." Carter muttered, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Harry, that's amazing, but shouldn't you be focusing on finding the Lost City?"

"Nope. It's not here," Harry said, shaking his head. "It's far out of our reach right now."

"What...?" Carter asked in surprise. "Harry, that's-"

"Don't worry, Sam," Harry said with a small smile. "We don't need it."

"What?"

Harry had to admit that he had never seen Carter blink so much in surprise and confusion within a single conversation. It was kind of amusing, and sort of cute, to be honest.

"Huh..." Harry uttered, scratching his head.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just realized that one of these days, possibly when we're not under the threat of invasion, you and I are going to have to do something about this sexual tension between us."

Seeing Carter blush and sputter was also pretty cute.

–

On Thursday, the day of the apparent invasion, Harry's lab was a bit cleaner, but still full. There weren't piles of scrap metal and spare parts everywhere, but instead the benches and floor were covered in thick wires, control panels, and various devices. Harry was holding the sides of what appeared to be a crudely made toaster to the untrained eye. The device was glowing brightly, which was why Harry's eyes were closed.

Once the glow died down, Harry opened the lid on it and withdrew a long, red crystal, looking it over.

"Hm, looks good," he decided with a nod. He walked over to his computer, next to which stood a crystal construct. Once he had slid the crystal into the center, the construct was complete. It was a large, translucent group of crystals about two feet tall with a circular base. Once the final crystal had been inserted, it gave off a bright yellow glow, which made Harry grin like Christmas had come early.

"Alright!" he barked happily, reaching up and pushing a couple of buttons on his bolt to store some of his assimilated information in one of his memory crystals. Then he, sitting in his chair, rolled over to his phone and picked it up, dialing a number.

"_O'Neill,_" the bored voice on the other end answered.

"That was exactly what I was going to say. It would feel redundant now," Harry muttered with a furrowed brow.

"_Harry, always good to hear from you,_" O'Neill said, and Harry could hear that he was quite busy trying to finish his crossword puzzle. "_You know, even though we're under the threat of invasion, I always have time for small talk._"

"Careful when you get up, O'Neill. Wouldn't want you to slip on the sarcasm," Harry said. "I didn't call to small talk. I need you to get Weir to approve of a mission to Antarctica."

There was silence, and Harry could almost hear O'Neill blinking.

"_Are you planning on going ice-fishing?_"

"Actually, I was planning on saving the world, but if that's not something you're interested in..."

"_I'll talk to Weir. And I'll get a plane-_"

"Sujan."

"_Right. I'll get back to you._"

There was a click, and Harry hung up, nodding to himself.

"_Master,_" Aceso spoke via his bolt, being still aboard the Sujan, "_the ship's sensors have picked up Anubis' fleet. They count thirty-seven Ha'tak and Anubis' mothership. Three of the Ha'tak are approaching quickly. The rest of the fleet is remaining behind._"

"So Anubis wants to find out if we managed to get anything from the Repository," Harry muttered. "Aceso, bring the Sujan around, and be ready to beam myself and the rest of SG-1 up, alright?"

"_Yes, Master._"

Harry picked up the Crysteri and left his lab, grinning widely to himself.

It was cheating to download knowledge like that, but given how much it was, Harry couldn't bring himself to care. There was so much in there, so many innovative ideas, so many designs and plans for him to add his own twist to! It was amazing!

Within minutes, Harry gave the command, and he was enveloped in a bright flash of white light. When it faded, he found himself standing in the control room of the Sujan, along with the rest of SG-1.

"Hello?" O'Neill muttered, giving a small wave. "Um, you know, I didn't exactly get the go-ahead yet."

"No time," Harry said. "Anubis is here. I'm going to the hologram generator. Sam, take the pilot seat. Aceso will assist."

"Alright," Carter said with a nod, walking off. "Ready, Aceso?"

"I am always pleased to assist you, Major Carter."

"You know, I like this AI better than Frank, I think," Harry heard O'Neill comment to Teal'c as the scientist walked off.

Harry headed up to the captain's cabin and walked straight to the back of it, where there was a small platform in front of a control panel. He stood on it, and punched in the coordinates.

In the White House, in the oval office, Harry's hologram shimmered into view, finding Hammond, Hayes, and a group of other people in the room, including Vice-President Kinsey.

"'Lo, boys and girls," Harry said with a wave, making everyone jump in surprise.

"Dr. Potter?" Hammond asked in surprise.

"I'm not really here. Just a hologram. I'm assuming, from the distressed looks on everyone's faces, that you have picked up signs of Anubis' fleet?"

"Long-range sensors have detected three motherships approaching the planet, yes," Hayes said with a nod.

"Well, they're probably just to test the waters," Harry said. "My sensors picked up on another thirty-five motherships, including Anubis' mothership, bringing up the rear."

"My God..." Kinsey uttered in shock. "Mr. President-"

"Dr. Potter, how well would the Prometheus stand up to them?"

Harry gave a shrug.

"It could probably take out ten, if Anubis' mothership was included. However, three Ha'tak are no problem. Anubis needs to be taken out in one quick strike. I know how to do that, but I need the fleet in range. If you use the Prometheus to take those three out, Anubis will probably think we don't have any other weapons, and will bring his whole fleet."

"Are you sure?" Hammond asked, to which Harry shrugged.

"I think I've figured out his personality pretty well. Usually, he would notice the ease with which we destroy his advance attack party, but I think he's a bit too eager to annihilate us, given the trouble we've been causing him lately."

"And you have weapons capable of defeating him?" Hayes asked, and Harry nodded.

"Yeah, just need to head to Antarctica. Give me five minutes, and I'll be ready to blow him out of the sky."

Hayes nodded.

"Be quick, Dr. Potter."

"Yeah, you just focus on destroying the advance attack party," Harry said, giving a wave before fading out of view.

–

In a flash of white light, SG-1 found themselves in an ice cave. The floor was clearly made through Ancient design, easily recognized even though the cave was very dark, and most of the floor was covered in ice.

Harry reached into his pocket and fished out a small metal ball. He pushed a button on top of the ball and tossed it into the air. The ball hovered in mid-air and gave off a bright like, like a miniature sun, lighting up the whole cave.

"What is this place?" Daniel asked curiously. "Is this the Lost City?"

"Don't be silly, Daniel," Harry said, shaking his head. "This is just the last remaining Ancient outpost on earth. This is where we'll find the weapon that can defend the planet. It's this way, if the layout in my brain is to be believed, which it is."

Harry moved through the cave, instinctively knowing where to go. Now and then, his eyes would twitch as he brought up the layout in his mind, heading straight for his destination and allowing no sightseeing.

They entered a chamber with a raised area in the center, a throne-like chair of Ancient design sitting on it. In front of the chair stood none other than Anubis, which made Harry raise an eyebrow.

"You are too late," Anubis announced. "The power of the Ancients is mine."

"A silly bluff," Harry muttered, shaking his head as he walked right through what turned out to be a hologram. "What was he planning on doing if we tried shooting him?"

He stepped up to the raised area in the floor and moved his hand over a spot, which suddenly clicked upward, an octagonal plate rising up out of it, showing a Crysteri under it. Harry removed the plate and then pulled out the Crysteri, which wasn't glowing, unlike his own. He snapped his fingers quickly, Carter getting the hint and reaching into the pack on her back to take out Harry's homemade Crysteri. He took it and inserted it, causing the throne-like chair to suddenly light up, along with the raised area of the floor.

"Harry, what is this?" Carter asked, approaching the chair.

"This is a neural interface chair," Harry said, sitting down in the chair, which activated by leaning Harry back and raising his legs. "With this, I have access to all functions of the outpost. In particular, the defensive systems. And now, we wait."

"Wait for what?" O'Neill asked.

"_Master,_" came Aceso's voice from Harry's control device, so that the rest of SG-1 could hear her as well, "_the Prometheus has destroyed the advance attack party. The remainder of Anubis' fleet is approaching._"

"Good. Let me know when they are within range."

"_Understood, Master._"

Harry closed his eyes as he touched a gelatinous substance on the armrests of the chair. Above him, a projection of the solar system appeared, and he opened his eyes to study it.

"What are you doing now?" Daniel wanted to know.

"I'm making sure the information in my mind is correct," Harry answered as the projection zoomed out of the solar system to show the entire Milky Way galaxy, then zoomed out further to show a cluster of galaxies. He focused on another galaxy, this one a dwarf galaxy, then zoomed into another solar system, a smile appearing on his face as his gaze landed on one of the planets.

"There it is," Harry announced, which made the others give him curious looks.

"It?" O'Neill repeated.

"What you've been looking for, my inheritance," Harry explained, zooming in on the planet. The projection seemed to zoom straight into the planet, to show a hologram of a giant city. "The Lost City... Atlantis."

"Your... inheritance?" Daniel asked.

"It is fitting," Teal'c spoke up suddenly, nodding in agreement. "Being the closest thing to an actual Ancient, and also being a descendant of the people, Harry Potter does have more right than anyone else to lay claim to any Ancient technology that may be found."

"Yeah, I decided this is going to be my new home," Harry said happily.

"But if it's in another galaxy-" Carter started, but was interrupted by Aceso establishing communications again.

"_Master, Anubis' fleet has appeared in orbit, taking stations around the planet._"

"He bought it," Harry said happily, closing his eyes again. "Let's do this."

Suddenly, Harry was bathed in a bright light, and a part of the ground between the area where SG-1 had appeared, and the chair platform fell away, a yellowish light shining out of it.

As SG-1 watched on, a stream of half-transparent yellow things similar to squids emerged from the ground and shot straight up into the icy ceiling, plowing through it with ease.

The beam of light shot straight up into the sky and split up, smashing into the various motherships in orbit over Antarctica.

The weapons tore the ships apart easily, and the shields around the ships were like paper. They provided no protection against the onslaught.

One Goa'uld ship after the other started exploding. Within minutes, half of Anubis' fleet had been annihilated, and the rest were smart enough to break off the invasion, quickly retreating.

Harry let out a sigh as the light around him died out. He rose to his feet and stretched, the chair returning to its normal position.

"That was fun," he announced. "Aceso, beam us up."

"_Understood, Master._"

–

No more than one day later found Harry once more sitting in one of the couches in the oval office, with President Hayes sitting across from him.

"You know, Doctor, when George told me how you had the habit of using amazing technology to save the day, I thought he may have just been exaggerating," Hayes said, nodding slowly with an appreciative look on his face.

"I do my best to impress," Harry said with a grin. "I may not act like it, but I'm very self-centered, and there's nothing I love more than having my accomplishments praised."

Hayes furrowed his brow and looked thoughtful for a moment.

"This is the second time we've ever met, Doctor, and even I can tell that that's exactly what you act like."

"True," Harry admitted after thinking about it for a second. "Monitoring chatter here and there, I understand there are some... arguments... regarding the outpost in Antarctica?"

"Yes, it's a bit annoying, actually. Not at all what I expected to deal with when I took office," Hayes said with a small smile. "I hear you've laid claim to that patch of land?"

"I have laid claim to everything Ancient. It's my birthright," Harry said, crossing his arms. "I trust you don't have a problem with that?"

"Oh, not at all," Hayes said quickly. "It actually makes things easier. If you are the owner of the outpost, then the other nations can't claim that the United States are hogging it for ourselves."

"I sense that you're about to say something I'm not going to like..." Harry muttered, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes, see, the thing is..." Hayes said, rising to his feet. "You have given us permission to study the outpost."

"I like seeing people trying to better themselves," Harry said with a nod. "Provided, of course, they don't try to steal anything that's rightfully mine."

"Oh, and we wouldn't, trust me. But here's the thing... You've only given the United States permission."

"And, of course, everyone else wants a slice of the cake?"

"Something like that. Which is why you need to join in the negotiations for a joint research treaty."

"And I suppose you'll frown on me just sending my AI Frank to negotiate in my stead?"

"From what I've heard about that thing?" Hayes said, feigning contemplation for a second, then giving Harry a firm, "Yes."

Harry hummed as he closed his eyes, thinking things through. It would've been nice to just pack up and head for Atlantis, but... He had friends and family on earth, and they might suffer some wrath if he did that. Contrary to popular belief, Harry did care for people other than himself. He didn't want his friends or family put into a situation where they would be facing scorn...

"Alright... Give me a ring when the negotiations are going to take place. If anything, I can scare them all into agreeing to my terms," he muttered with a shrug.

"I know you won't really care what I want, but I'd prefer it if you avoided giving the foreign diplomats heart attacks."

"I make no promises."

–

**End of chapter thirty! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry prepares to head to Atlantis, has a couple of conversations, makes a few recommendations, and I think there might be a bit of romance, too!**

**Have a very Harry New Year! And a Happy one, too!**


	31. Chapter 31

**ZnK here with chapter thirty-one! Holy crap, this chapter took too damn long! You can expect future updates to take a while as well. Not only do I have other things on my plate, but I'm also having trouble figuring out what to do next... Hopefully, you'll be patient with me! ****In this chapter, Harry has to sit through negotiations with the Goa'uld, makes a call (off-screen), and finally gets Tonks clearance!**

–

Harry plopped into a chair in the cafeteria of the SGC, letting out a heavy and weary sigh. Carter, O'Neill, and Daniel were sitting at the table he'd sat down at, giving him concerned looks.

"Are you alright?" Carter asked. "Headache?"

"Yeah, always, but the headache isn't what bothers me right now," Harry said, slumping forward and thumping his forehead against the table. "I just came back from negotiations with the nations part of the Antarctic Treaty..."

"Oh, wow..." O'Neill muttered, wincing in sympathy.

"You know those mad scientists who kill people without remorse?"

"Yeah?"

"I have never been so tempted to kidnap people and use them as test subjects in cruel experiments as I was during those so-called negotiations..."

"So-called?" Daniel asked, raising an eyebrow."

"Well, I wasn't going to budge, so I took to just glaring at whoever tried to get more than I was offering," Harry muttered. "Can you believe that England... _England_, of all countries, wanted to gain exclusive rights to whatever progress their scientists made researching the outpost?"

"Well, it's not as though you had much else to do before you had to go to the negotiations," Carter reasoned with a shrug. "At least you didn't have to just sit still."

"Sit still? You think I would've sat still?" Harry asked in surprise. "Sam, I have built a new power source, the strongest and cleanest in existence. Meanwhile, my ship runs on keron. Do you really think I wouldn't want to upgrade it?"

"Wait," Daniel said, clearing his throat. "How did you get away from the negotiations so quickly? Did you call a recess?"

"No, I offered something," Harry said. "I gave the other eleven nations the designs for my ion cannons. Of course, I had them all sign the same contract as the United States. Naturally, I modified the plans to include a very cleverly hidden self-destruct command that only I can activate."

"In case they turn them toward other nations?" O'Neill guessed.

"Well, the plans are modified so that the cannons can only fire upward, unlike the Tollan ones, but they could still shoot down satellites if they wished."

"And if that were to happen, you'd push the big red button, the cannons would go boom, and everything would break down into peace talks and negotiations again?" O'Neill asked, which made Harry twitch.

"Shit, I hadn't considered that..." he muttered, scratching his chin. "This damn headache is affecting me more than I thought..."

"How bad are those headaches, anyway?" Carter wondered. "I mean, Teal'c saw you shrug off a staff blast to the head like it was nothing."

"Sam, as you know, my brain capacity is great, but every day, I assimilate anything between a hundred and five hundred years worth of history and designs," Harry said with a small smile. "I think you can imagine what kind of a headache that could cause."

Daniel blinked at that. "Actually, I'm surprised you can even think at all..."

"Let alone avoid speaking Ancient all the time..." O'Neill muttered. "By the way, you've been talking about heading to the Lost City."

"Yeah?"

"My question is, how the hell are we supposed to use the Antarctica weapon if the chair only responds to you?"

"No, no," Harry said, waving him off. "I told you yesterday, the chair can be used by anyone with Ancient genes in them."

"Yeah?"

"Well, just because my genes are the strongest, that doesn't mean that I'm the only one who has them," Harry said, making a gesture for O'Neill. "Hell, even you have Ancient genes in you. In fact, other than me, you are the one with the most potent Ancient genes. You could sit in the chair and use it, too."

"And me?" Carter asked.

"Some, but I doubt it would be enough to power Ancient technology," Harry said, shaking his head. "If you want, I can synthesize a sort of activation gene for you, rendering you capable of using it. Moros knows you deserve it."

He was met with blank stares at that.

"Merlin," he clarified.

"But why would they make some things that could only be activated by the presence of their genes?" Daniel asked, tilting his head to the side. "I mean, we've found other technology that didn't need it."

"The gene-activation was something that they came up with later," Harry explained. "They were smart enough to know that their things might get stolen, and so made it that only they could use them."

"Who reminded them of this fact?" O'Neill asked, getting a curious look from Harry. "Well, they weren't gonna start restricting their toys to their genes unless someone had actually stolen and used something, right?"

"I have no idea," Harry said with a shrug. "I haven't assimilated that information yet. Speaking of assimilating..."

Harry reached into his pocket and took out a CD, handing it over to Carter, who took it with a raised eyebrow.

"Make sure this gets to Area 51. It contains plans for a prae-lume engine."

"A what?" Carter asked, taking the CD.

"Lume, that's light," Daniel said. "Prae, though... It sounds almost like praeter? Beyond-light?"

"Yes," Harry said, nodding. "I think the more popular name for such a thing is FTL, or Faster-Than-Light. It, as the name suggests, allows a ship to travel faster than light without the need to engage a hyperdrive. I thought it'd be better to be safe than sorry, and have three different engines on the Prometheus. I intend to install one in the Sujan as well. I'll also be making some upgrades to the sublight engines, the hyperdrive, the weapons system... et cetera."

"Sounds like busy times ahead for you."

"Yup. Also, added to that is the ridiculous amount of paperwork I have to go through in order to get Nym clearance to go with me to Atlantis."

"Yeah, I was wondering whether you'd bring her along," Carter said with a grin. "I'd think that even your relationship would be damaged if you made it an insanely long-distance thing."

"Even ours?" Harry asked, blinking. "Are you saying there's something different about our relationship?"

"Oh, of course not," Carter said immediately. "I mean, it's not like you're dating three women, two of which are aliens sharing the same body, and the third being about as crazy as you, and has no sense of modesty."

"What's your point?"

"Your relationship is strange," O'Neill spoke up. "Unheard of, in fact, and you make agreements and other crap that almost no other woman would ever agree with."

"What he said," Carter said with a nod toward O'Neill.

The klaxons went off rather suddenly, making SG-1 look up as Davis' voice called, "_Unauthorized offworld activation!_"

"Coming?" O'Neill asked as he and the others stood up, while Harry stayed seated.

"No, you go. I have a bit of a headache still," Harry said, gesturing for them to walk away.

The mad scientist watched as SG-1 walked off, and he leaned back in his chair, bringing his hands up to rub his temples.

"Ow... Damn politics..."

–

"So, we got a message earlier."

Harry looked up from his work to stare at Daniel as the man walked into his lab, holding a piece of paper in his hand.

"Thought you might like to read it."

"Oh?" Harry asked, taking the paper of looking over it. It was written in Goa'uld. "Hm... 'Humans of Tauri from the planet known as Earth... I am Camulus... System Lords request-' Wow, request? Not demand?"

"Keep reading," Daniel said, making a gesture for the paper with a smile on his face. "It gets better."

Harry idly wondered how it could possibly get better, when he looked down and kept reading.

"'...request immediate communication for the purpose of negotiating a treaty-' Oh... Hah!" Harry laughed out loud. "Not so insignificant anymore, are we?"

"Evidently not," Daniel said with a smirk. "I'm guessing you can figure why they had this sudden change of heart?"

"Because I blew Anubis out of the sky in a single day, when they couldn't even do it with all their combined forces," Harry surmised with a nod. Then, he froze, and he slowly looked up at Daniel. "Hm... Daniel, I respect you, you know that, right?"

"Yeah?"

"And I suspect that my respect for you is the very reason why you were the one who came here with this..." Harry muttered, his eyes narrowing to glare at his friend. "You want me present during these negotiations..."

"Uh, correction, Dr. Weir wants you present."

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"So, uh... Yeah... You should, you know... go see her soon..." Daniel muttered cautiously. "So... Yeah, see ya!"

With that, Daniel left the lab, closing the door in time for Harry to snap, literally flipping his workbench over and sending parts flying everywhere.

"I _hate_ politics! I want it all to die!"

"_Master, as an expert in the art of termination, I can safely say that it is impossible to kill a word,_" Frank spoke up from the corner of the lab, which made Harry twitch.

"I know, Frank..."

"_If I may ask, why would you request the death of the word 'politics' if you knew for a fact that it was impossible to accomplish?_"

"Aceso..."

"_Master?_"

"Smack Frank."

A clang was heard as his order was executed.

And so later found Harry standing in the Gate Room, awaiting the arrival of the three System Lords set to arrive for the negotiations, Camulus, Amaterasu, and Yu. Standing with him was Dr. Weir. Daniel was also supposed to be there, but he seemed to be late.

"Why couldn't I just send you whatever helpful notes you may need on my inventions?" Harry asked, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"You're a scary man, Dr. Potter," Weir said with a small smile. "In a negotiation like this, I think we could use a bit of scariness."

"That..." Harry blinked. "That's a pretty good reason, I admit. I suppose it would be better for me to be there in person. Doesn't mean I have to like it, though..."

They stood in silence for a while, then Harry glanced at Weir, before nodding.

"Yeah, it's definitely for the best that I'm here."

This made Weir look at him in confusion.

"How so?"

"Well, you look nervous enough to jump out of your knickers if a cat so much as brushed by your leg," Harry commented, just as the klaxons sounded, and Weir, predictably, jumped slightly in surprise. "Like so."

As the chevrons on the Gate started locking, Daniel entered the Gate Room, putting on his watch.

"I thought you were going to stand us up," Weir commented, calming slightly. She seemed to have some confidence in Daniel.

"Yeah, sorry."

"What were you doing?" Harry wanted to know as Davis said from the control room, "Receiving a signal, Ma'am. SG-7 reports we have a green light."

"I was actually taking a nap," Daniel said as Weir gave the order to open the iris. "Wanted to get my rest before the negotiations."

"Damn..." Harry muttered, snapping his fingers. "Wish I'd thought of that..."

The iris opened, and an Asian woman came stepping through, wearing a beautiful yukata, followed by Lord Yu and his First Prime (Oshu, if Harry's memory served), and a man who could only be Camulus.

"Welcome to Earth," Weir said as the System Lords came walking down the ramp. "Allow me to introduce-"

"We are not interested in your name," Camulus said as the System Lords stopped at the base of the ramp.

"Really? I find it generally helps so much-"

"We prefer to present our offer, so we can spend as brief a time as possible on this planet," Amaterasu said, which made Harry narrow his eyes.

"A planet that is clearly the enemy of the Goa'uld," he said, making sure to make his glare as intimidating as possible. "I suggest you show a bit of respect to the people who can turn you to dust in the blink of an eye."

Amaterasu was surprisingly quick to flinch slightly at the dangerous look in Harry's eye. Lord Yu looked completely unaffected, while Camulus put on a brave facade, which quickly faded when a wide, sadistic grin appeared on Harry's face.

"Well then," Amaterasu, sounding surprisingly composed, as she looked at Weir. "Your name?"

"Dr. Elizabeth Weir," the leader of the SGC said, then gestured for Daniel, followed by Harry. "Dr. Daniel Jackson, and Dr. Harry Potter. Shall we get started?"

–

Harry, Weir, Daniel, and the three System Lords were sitting around the table in the briefing room, with Oshu standing behind Yu.

"Your unexpected defeat of Anubis has created an unstable situation among the System Lords," Camulus said. "In order to avoid open war, we came to an agreement to divide his territories and his armies evenly."

"How civilized of you," Daniel commented dryly.

"Yes. Unfortunately, one among us had broken that agreement."

"Oh, no, no. Don't... don't tell me, let me... let me guess..." Daniel muttered. "It's, um..."

"Ba'al, most likely," Harry commented to which Amaterasu nodded.

"Ba'al!" Daniel said, snapping his fingers in realization.

"He was able to learn the location of the planet where Anubis was creating his Kull warriors," Camulus said seriously.

"Ba'al got there before you did and found a way to program the soldiers to serve him," Daniel concluded, which got him a sour look from Camulus.

"With those Orak at his command, Ba'al has tipped the balance of power in his favor," Amaterasu said, making Weir blink and look to the two scientists.

"Orak?"

"Unspeakable," Harry and Daniel translated in unison.

"In battle, the Kull are far superior to the Jaffa," Camulus explained. "Already, many among us have begun to speak of capitulation, much as they did with Anubis. If that happens, Ba'al will indeed be unstoppable."

"To you, maybe," Harry said, throwing his feet up on the table to show that he wasn't moved at all by the threat of Ba'al. "What's this got to do with us, then?"

Yu made a gesture for Oshu, who leaned in as the System Lord whispered something to him. After a moment, Oshu straightened up and looked over the others.

"My master wishes to say, it is well-known the Tau'ri possess a powerful new weapon. Something far beyond their current level of technology."

"Yes, we used it to kill Anubis and destroy his fleet," Daniel said with a nod.

"By means of this weapon, Ba'al can be prevented from conquering the galaxy."

"Still no problem of ours," Harry quipped.

"If Ba'al defeats us, how long do you think it will be before he turns his attention to you?" Camulus wondered.

"If he does, he'll suffer the same fate as Anubis," Weir assured them.

"Perhaps," Amaterasu said. "But there are other worlds in this galaxy without the luxury of such advanced defenses."

"What are you talking about?" Daniel wanted to know.

"We could not help but notice that the Asgard did not come to your aid when Anubis threatened your planet," Amaterasu elaborated with a smirk. "In fact, we've heard nothing from the Asgard for quite some time now."

"That's because you haven't needed to hear anything from them," Harry said with a grin. "As you noticed, we were perfectly capable of defeating Anubis on our own. And to be honest, the Asgard are getting pretty tired of your antics. Although I am ruining their grand plan now, they have put on the facade of not caring anymore, in order to make you do something stupid and break the treaty between you and them."

"Be that as it may, Ba'al intends to take the planets protected under the Goa'uld-Asgard treaty for himself."

"Then he will be facing the full wrath of the Asgard," Harry said, still grinning. "I wish him luck."

"Regardless if he takes the protected planets or not, if you do not help us stop him, millions of humans will die. And millions more will be enslaved."

Oh, how clever of Camulus, appealing to the Tau'ri's desire to protect people.

"My colleagues and I will have to discuss this in private," Weir said, to which Camulus nodded, a small smirk on his face.

As soon as Harry, Weir, and Daniel entered Weir's office and closed the door, Harry crossed his arms with a scoff.

"They believe we're actually considering this."

"They do truly seem to believe that the Asgard aren't able to protect this galaxy anymore," Weir said, sitting down behind her desk. "Is that true?"

"Not at all. It's just that they've realized that this galaxy won't grow if they continue to hold our hand," Harry said. "If push comes to shove, they'll pop in to say hi and remind everyone that they still enforce the treaty, but it's not like they're going to show up for every little thing."

"Is it true?" Daniel asked, which made Harry blink.

"Is what true?"

"This... plan you mentioned?"

"No, the Asgard aren't really that annoyed with the Goa'uld, provided that they stick to the treaty. It's not like they actively wish to destroy them," Harry said, shaking his head. Then, he glanced at Weir. "By the way, how much longer is it going to take for Nym to get clearance?"

"This isn't really the best time, Doctor..."

"What else is there to talk about?" Harry asked with a shrug. "It's not like we're going to so much as consider this before hearing what they're offering. And the longer we take, the more it will appear as though we _are_, in fact, considering it."

Weir sighed.

"Well, it's done," she said. "All your girlfriend needs to do is sign the agreement of non-disclosure."

"Oh, goody."

"I guess there's no need to stay in here any longer. We can all agree that we have no intention of doing anything before we hear what they're offering, correct?" Weir questioned, getting nods from Daniel and Harry.

Weir nodded as well, and the trio made their way out of the office, getting the attention of the three System Lords immediately.

"Well, we appreciate you bringing us this information," Weir said as they all sat down at the table again, "but it doesn't change the fact that we can't get involved in any internal Goa'uld disputes, and if Ba'al tries to attack any of the protected planets, he'll suffer the consequences."

"Unfortunately, we do not share your faith in the Asgard," Camulus said seriously. "We must stop Ba'al before it comes to that."

"You'll forgive my bluntness, but that's not our problem," Weir said simply.

"Enough!" Yu barked suddenly, slamming his hand down on the table. "With each passing moment, Anubis grows more powerful!"

The others around the table looked at Yu, puzzled by this outburst.

"You mean Ba'al," Daniel prodded, and Oshu immediately stepped forward.

"My master is fatigued. We request a short adjournment."

"Silence!" Yu hissed to Oshu. "I need no adjournment."

"We know you have a formidable new defensive weapon," Camulus said after a moment of silence, getting back on track as he looked at Weir, "but with it, you must wait for your enemies to come to you, and that can be dangerous. What if an enemy were to devise a means of defeating this weapon?"

"If they did, I'd welcome our destruction, because that would be quite the feat," Harry commented arrogantly, smirking at Camulus, who glared at him.

"What, exactly, are you offering?" Weir wanted to know.

"Hyperdrive engines," Camulus said.

"We know you have battleships that are not capable of interstellar travel," Amaterasu picked up. "We-"

"Your intel is a bit outdated," Harry said, throwing his feet up on the table again with a huge grin on his face. "We're not just capable of interstellar travel, but also _intergalactic_ travel. We have no use for such low-tech parts."

The System Lords looked at Harry in shock at hearing that, then looked to Weir and Daniel, searching for confirmation, only to see smiles on their faces.

"You have viable hyperdrive technology," Camulus stated in surprise.

"We do," Weir said with a nod.

"In that case, this Ancient weapon of yours," Amaterasu said, collecting herself quickly. "It is such an advanced piece of technology. The power requirement must be enormous. Even simple maintenance must be extremely difficult, given your limited capabilities."

"We manage," Weir said quickly, no doubt noticing how Harry bristled at the term 'limited capabilities'.

"Of course, we believe you," Amaterasu said silkily, a smirk appearing on her face. "But I wonder what Ba'al would think if he were to receive intelligence that the weapon was... temporarily out of commission."

Camulus and Yu looked at each other at that.

"Hm... He would come to this world to claim it for himself. The Tau'ri would be forced to destroy him," Camulus concluded.

"And we would have to give them... nothing," Amaterasu said, still smirking.

"Well, there's one thing you haven't taken into account," Harry said, giving the System Lords a dangerous glare. "If Ba'al were to come here, we'd know who gave him the information. And considering how the weapons technology on our ships is vastly superior to your own, you can bet that we'll spend the days following his attack by hunting down and destroying every single one of you."

"You wouldn't-" Amaterasu started, but stopped when Harry fished his Asgard communicator out of his pocket.

"Thor."

"_Harry,_" came Thor's voice from the crystal within seconds. "_What can I do for you?_"

"We are currently in negotiations with a couple of System Lords," Harry explained. "Say, if they were to tell another System Lord that Earth is undefended, and that System Lord would attack, at which point we'd destroy them... would that be considered a breach of the treaty?"

"_Those System Lords would be responsible for an attack on a protected planet, so indeed, it would be a breach._"

"So, if that happened, we'd have you to help us wipe them all out, yes?"

"_You would have the full support of the Asgard fleet._"

It was amazing how well Thor could read Harry simply by his tone of voice. As there was trouble stirring in the Ida galaxy, half the fleet was patrolling the edges of the galaxy, and yet Thor gave such assurances without even thinking for a second. No doubt, he knew Harry wanted to scare the System Lords.

"Thanks, Thor. I'll be in touch soon. I need to visit my house to check up on it, anyway."

"_You are always welcome here, Harry. Thor out._"

Harry smirked and pocketed the crystal, looking over the three System Lords.

"Any questions?"

The System Lords looked nervous now, though they were hiding it well. They shared a couple of looks with each other, and then Camulus looked at Weir.

"We must send a message to the other System Lords, to advise them of the current situation."

"Go ahead," Weir said with a smile.

–

"So, this is the SGC!"

Harry made a gesture toward the corridor he and Tonks stepped into as they came out of the elevator. Tonks, wearing a pair of _very_ short jean shorts, a pair of heavy boots, and a black tank top, looked around with a hum. Today, her hair was a kind of dark purple, tied into a ponytail.

"It's very... gray..." she commented. She looked kind of disappointed, like she was expecting something more. "It's... not what I was expecting..."

"What were you expecting?"

"Something more similar to those sci-fi shows on the telly. You know, something shinier."

"Well, good thing for you, you don't have to see these sights for much longer," Harry said with a grin. "We'll be heading to our new home soon."

"And is this... Atlantis... a bit less stale than this place?"

"Oh, it's very alien," Harry said with a nod. "Lots of bright lights and alien architecture. You'll love it."

"Dr. Potter!" came a Weir's voice as Harry and Tonks made to walk off, and Harry looked to the left to see the woman come walking down another corridor, carrying a box filled with stuff in her hands.

"Dr. Weir," Harry greeted with a nod, then gestured for Tonks. "This is Nym. I'm giving her a tour."

"Wotcher," Tonks said, waving.

"Miss Tonks," Weir greeted, before turning to Harry. "Well, I only looked you up to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Harry asked. "Going somewhere?"

"Yes, now that the negotiations with the Goa'uld is over, I can focus on Earth, and the President has asked me to supervise the research of the Ancient Outpost."

"I guess you're the best choice for that position," Harry admitted with a nod. "So, who's taking over here?"

"As if you don't know," Weir muttered shrewdly. "The President told me you were the one who was the strongest supporter for now Brigadier General O'Neill's promotion."

"I had nothing to do with anything," Harry said, lighting a cigarette. "Well, good luck in Antarctica, Dr. Weir. I hear McKay is going to be there. If he gives you trouble, no one is going to blame you if you break his nose. In fact, I think it might be encouraged."

"Somehow, I get the feeling you're lying to me," Weir grinned. "Got a problem with Dr. McKay?"

"More than one," was all Harry said, before walking off with Tonks in tow.

"Oh, and Doctor?"

"Hm?"

"I trust you'll be at the Gate Room for when General O'Neill officially takes over?"

"That depends," Harry called back, checking his watch. "When is it?"

"You'll be informed of a time."

Harry nodded, then kept walking. After a few steps, however, he stopped and looked at Nym.

"Oh, can you go wait for me in my lab? I have to go talk to O'Neill."

"Alright..." Tonks said slowly, looking left and right. "Um... Where is your lab?"

"Figure it out," Harry said with a grin as he walked off again. "Explore, have fun!"

Harry headed toward Daniel's lab, as his right eye picked up on O'Neill's soul inside, along with Daniel, Teal'c, and Carter. When he reached the door, he heard Teal'c voice saying, "...on the verge of dominance over the System Lords, we face a formidable challenge ahead."

"And here on Earth, we've never been under so much scrutiny as we will be, now that so many governments know about the Stargate," came Daniel's voice.

"I've never had a desk," O'Neill said, which made Harry chuckle outside the lab. Leave it to O'Neill to focus only on trivial things.

"That's a, uh...?"

"Con."

Harry chose to step inside at that moment, raising his hand in a wave.

"Hey, kids! Congratulations on the promotion, O'Neill."

"Actually, he's not sure if he wants to take it yet," Carter supplied, which made Harry blink.

"What? Why? You unmotivated sod! Imagine who might be put in charge if you don't!"

O'Neill frowned and the frustrated Harry.

"You know, people in a team aren't supposed to scold the leader..."

"Like I give a damn."

"Well, you know, he's kinda right," Daniel said. "Nobody knows how this place should be run better than you."

O'Neill blinked at that and looked at him. "Why, thank you, Daniel."

"With a little guidance from your good friends and advisers, of course."

"And like Harry implied, if you don't take the job, we could end up with someone much worse," Carter supplied, which got her a hurt look from O'Neill. She blinked and seemed to realize what she had just said, which caused her to smile with a grimace. "Okay, that didn't come out right..."

"I, for one, will miss you accompanying us on our missions, O'Neill," Teal'c said with a rare smile on his face.

"Yeah, now see, I'm not sure I'm ready to give that up," O'Neill whined. "Sitting back, watching you guys go off and have all the fun."

"Risking our lives in the face of grave danger..." Daniel muttered.

"Yeah, that."

"Who's to say you can't go with them?" Harry asked with a shrug.

"Yeah, you'll be in charge, you can do whatever you want," Daniel said, but quickly seemed to realize that was a bad thing to say, judging by the look on O'Neill's face.

"I'll be able to do whatever I want," O'Neill mimicked, his eyes widening in realization.

Daniel, Carter, and Teal'c shared slightly alarmed looks at that.

"Within reason... sir," Carter muttered.

–

"Is it always this boring?" Tonks asked as she stood next to Harry in the Gate Room. Harry, in turn, stood next to Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c. The ramp leading up to the Gate was red-carpeted, with a podium at its top. Four flags hung behind the Gate, and the room was full of personnel as Weir walked up to the podium.

"No, not always. Most days, though," Harry said as Weir started talking.

"Although my time here has been brief, it has been, without a doubt, indelible. And I thank you all..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tonks whispered to Harry.

"What?"

"Well, of course time can't be eaten. Why would she even say that?"

"She said indelible. Means leaving marks, or in this case, impressions, that won't disappear. Not inedible..."

"Oh..."

"I'm not one for long goodbyes, so without further ado, it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to your new Commanding Officer, Brigadier General Jack O'Neill!"

The blast doors opened, and people moved out of the way to make a path, standing at attention for O'Neill, who was dressed in full uniform. He acknowledged Teal'c, Carter, Daniel, and Harry and nodded to Weird as she stepped off the ramp, and he walked stiffly to the podium. Once there, he cleared his throat and tapped the microphone once, before leaning closer to it.

"At ease."

Everyone relaxed, and O'Neill straightened up again.

"You all know how much I love speeches, so, I'll make this short. I wish I could say I didn't owe anything to anyone. But the truth is, I wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for the courage and support of each and every one of you. I hope I can be as good a leader as we've had in the past-"

"With the exception of Bauer!" Harry barked, which caused a few chuckles to break out.

"-with the exception of... some..." O'Neill muttered. "And as good as you deserve."

"Here, here!" Daniel said as everyone started applauding, including Tonks.

"The other reason I took this job was so I could do really cool stuff like this," O'Neill continued once the applause had died down. "It is with great pride that my first order of business as Commander of this base is the announcement of the promotion of Major Samantha Carter to Lieutenant Colonel!"

Applause broke out again, while Carter looked stunned. She glanced around uncertainly for a second, as though expecting some other Major Carter to walk up to O'Neill, but then O'Neill raised his eyebrows at her, saying, "Come on."

Carter gulped nervously and made her way up to the podium, standing to face O'Neill. Then, Sergeant Davis came up as well, taking his place behind the podium and opening a folder in his hand as O'Neill started removing the Major insignias from Carter's epaulettes.

"The President of the United States has placed special trust and confidence in the patriotism, integrity, and abilities of Major Samantha Carter. Major Samantha Carter is promoted to the grade of Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air-Force."

"They really love talking, these Yanks, don't they?" Tonks muttered as O'Neill replaced the insignias with Lieutenant Colonel insignias, before saluting Carter, who returned it. Everyone started applauding, even Tonks, as she kept talking. "Why not just say 'The bird's promoted,' and be done with it? I hope there isn't a parade as well..."

"Don't jinx it, Nym, please..." Harry muttered.

"Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter," O'Neill said with a proud smile. "Now, raise your right hand, and repeat after me. I, insert name..."

"I, Samantha Carter..."

–

**End of chapter thirty-one! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! This didn't feel like my best chapter... Felt kinda all over the place. I just had some difficulty figuring some stuff out. Anyway, in the next chapter, Harry and an expedition assembled by Dr. Weir heads to Atlantis, along with Harry's sweetheart Tonks!**

**Also, I have heard a few comments about the ZPM. The official Ancient name for it has never been revealed. It was never determined if 'Potentia' was the real Ancient name for it, or if it was just the name the people of Dagan gave it. As such, my name for it is Crysteri!**


	32. Chapter 32

**ZnK here with chapter thirty-two! I sincerely hope I won't take too long releasing the next one! ****In this chapter, Harry and the expedition go to Atlantis, and Harry gives Tonks a present!**

–

"By Moros..." Harry muttered as he stood in the Antarctica Outpost, staring at the person sitting in the control chair. "Carson, are you... even trying?"

"Look, I don't think this-" the Scotsman started, but was interrupted by Harry, who looked over his shoulder.

"Nym!"

Tonks, looking incredibly cold, looked up from poking one of the squid-like drones that a couple of scientists were working on.

"Ey?"

"Get over here and show Carson how it's done!"

"I don't know, Harry..." Tonks said, putting a hand on her hip, looking incredibly proud as she smirked at Carson. "He might feel a bit emasculated. More so than he feels already."

"Listen, I don't feel emasculated, alright?" Carson said as he shot out of the chair. "I just... don't like this thing... I'm a doctor, a medical doctor! I don't-"

"Then you're kind of useless," Harry said simply, pushing Carson away and gesturing for Tonks to come over, which she did immediately. "Alright, love, sit."

"Yes, sir!" Tonks said happily, sitting down. As a person of average intelligence, it wasn't often that she was able to assist Harry, so being able to do something like this was amazingly fun for her. A holographic version of the solar system appeared above them. She touched the gelatinous substances in the armrests, and a somewhat lecherous grin appeared on her face. "You know, this feels kinda erotic. We should shag in this chair sometime."

"Focus," Harry chided, long since used to Tonks' perverted comments. "Alright, I trust you've studied as ordered?"

At that, Nym looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Yeah, about that..."

Harry sighed as he lit a cigarette.

"You haven't studied."

"Well, see, The Bachelor was on, and Freya and I had a bet, and-"

"Whatever... I suppose it was wishful thinking that you might actually sit down an read a file that thick," Harry said, pushing back his sleeve, opening up his control device.

"Yeah, you really should have known better."

Uncomfortable, yes, but she didn't even look remotely ashamed. It was to be expected. Tonks was much like O'Neill when it came to studying. Maybe that was why he respected O'Neill for it? He looked up from the control device, to see that Carson was still standing there, rather red-faced as he stared at Tonks, who was making some very sensual movements in the chair, most of them accentuating her now borderline D-cup breasts.

"Are you still here?"

"W-Well..." Carson said, clearing his throat as he tore his gaze away from the smirking Tonks. "I didn't know if you were done with me."

"I'm done," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and fishing out a USB flash drive, handing it to Carson. "Take this. It will help you synthesize the activation gene."

Carson took the flash drive, but he didn't move. His gaze returned to Tonks, who was still grinning and moving in the chair, touching the gelatinous substances very sensually. Harry sighed and barked, "Go!" which made Carson jump and scurry off. Now that they were somewhat alone, Harry looked down at Tonks.

"You did that on purpose."

"He doesn't seem like he has a lot of experience with women," Tonks said, sounding pleased with herself. "He was so fun to tease."

"Hrmm..."

"I was serious, though, we really should shag in this chair when we're alone."

"Potter!" came the most annoying voice in the world, cutting Harry off from responding as he turned around and found McKay approaching.

"Hello, Meredith..." Harry hissed, narrowing his eyes.

"Your robot-"

"Synthetic lifeform," Harry interrupted. "He prefers to be called a synthetic lifeform."

"Your _robot_ threatened me!" McKay said. "Was he telling the truth when he said that you had coated his blades with citrus extract?"

"Maybe," Harry said evasively, puffing on his cigarette. "I have also tweaked Frank's prime directive slightly when it comes to you. I won't stand for you insulting my kids, so if you do, he has been authorized to hurt you."

All of McKay's anger bled away in an instance, to be replaced by fear.

"What?"

"Yeah, so you should be careful when talking to him. Moros knows what he considers an insult," Harry said with a shrug.

McKay opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it, repeating this several times, before snapping his mouth shut one final time and walking off. He stopped after five steps, however, and turned toward Harry.

"You know, Potter, one of these days, you're gonna-"

"McKay," Harry interrupted, narrowing his eyes. "You wanna feel how hard I can punch?"

Once more McKay's mouth opened, and once more he snapped it shut, before marching off again.

Moments later, Weir came walking up to Harry and Tonks, looking amused.

"Dr. Potter-"

"Call me Harry."

"Alright, Harry, care to tell me why Rodney looked as though he had just received a death sentence?"

"I threatened him, and I may have told him a small lie about tweaking Frank's prime directives just for him," Harry said with a grin. "Should keep him off both my back, and Frank's."

Weir looked like she was going to say something, but then looked at Tonks, then at the star map overhead.

"This is coming to you as naturally as ever, I see," she commented, to which Tonks grin.

"Yup!"

"Yes. Despite Nym's less than amazing intelligence, she takes to this like a fish to water," Harry said, which effectively angered Tonks, who glared at him as her hair slowly shifted from blond to blood red. This made Weir's eyes widen.

"What-"

"Nym, like myself, is perfectly capable of manipulating her inherent biological energy," Harry explained, having long since come up with an excuse for when Tonks might slip up and morph unintentionally. "As such, she is effectively a shapeshifter. She can change her looks to whatever she wants, provided she sticks to her own gender. She once tried to unsuccessfully grow a penis in an attempt to have some kind of kinky sexual encounter with Freya. She merely ended up with an overly enlarged clitoris."

A furious blush sprung up on Weir's face, and the same happened with Tonks, who gave Harry another glare.

"I thought we agreed to keep that a secret..."

"No, I never agreed. You simply gave an order I chose not to obey," Harry said with a smirk. Then he focused on Weir again. "Anyway, Nym is the only one who can do it so easily. Carson's gene isn't exactly super powerful."

"He still can't use it?"

"He would, if he could muster enough concentration, but other than that, no. Everyone else is about the same as Carson."

Weir looked like she was about to speak, but just then Daniel came rushing into view.

"Ah, just the people I need to see," he said, then turned around and rushed away, which caused Weir and Harry to exchange looks. Within moments, Daniel doubled back and beckoned them to follow.

"Come with me."

Harry and Weir followed Daniel to one of the labs, which was filled with computer monitors showing Gate addresses and paper star charts. Daniel walked over to a whiteboard covered with Stargate chevrons.

"Alright," Daniel said, pointing at the address written on the whiteboard. "Since Harry refuses to help-"

"You'll never improve if I keep holding your hand."

"-progress has been slow, but we think that we finally managed to figure out the eighth symbol for the address."

Daniel turned around and added another symbol between the sixth and seventh.

"By our calculations, this should be it," he concluded, then turned to look at Harry. "Right?"

Harry smiled slightly as he raised his hands, applauding softly.

"Very good, Daniel, very good. That's exactly right."

"So, now that that's figured out, we still need to figure out how to supply the Gate with enough power to make such trip."

"Already taken care of," Harry said. "I've managed to create four more Crysteri with the material I had. The one here at the outpost will remain, one will be used to power the Gate, and I'll be bringing three of them with me."

"Has Jack given the go-ahead?" Daniel wanted to know.

"No idea. He's on his way. You'll have to ask him yourself," Harry said, putting out his cigarette and immediately lighting a new one. "Well, if you need me, I'll be by the chair. Oh, and Elizabeth, tell McKay that if he so desperately wants something to work on, he can design something that will allow the Crysteri-"

"By the way, we're calling them ZPM's," Daniel interrupted.

"What?"

"ZPM, Zero-Point Modules," Weir explained. "You were saying?"

"Yeah, tell McKay to design something that will allow the Crysteri to channel its energy into the Gate. I'd do it myself, but... it feels kinda like grunt work. So, right up McKay's alley."

Later found Harry standing by the control chair, jutting down notes on a clipboard as Tonks stood next to him, watching it.

"I wanna sit in it again."

"If you do it too much, you'll only grow tired of it. Then you'll spend the rest of our stay here bored out of your mind," Harry said, then looked up and blinked in surprise. "Wow..."

"What?"

"I just realized how much you're acting like a child right now. It's cute."

"Aw, thank you!" Tonks said, rising up on her toes to give Harry a kiss.

"Well, you know, I-"

Harry stopped and perked up suddenly, spinning around. There, standing some distance away and looking around curiously, was a somewhat young-looking airman, judging by the jumpsuit. He looked a bit out of place, like he had no idea what most of the things around him did. He was definitely no scientist, but...

"You!" Harry barked, pointing at the man as he rushed over.

"Me?" the man asked, blinking.

"Yes, you, come here," Harry ordered as he grabbed the man by his collar and roughly pulled him toward the chair.

"Hey, easy!" the man exclaimed. "Let me go!"

"I have time for neither," Harry said simply. "I need you to sit down in this chair."

Harry almost threw the man at the chair, causing him to stumble toward it. He regained his balance and stopped just a few inches away from falling into the chair.

"Is that any way to ask a man to do something?" the man grumbled, adjusting his jumpsuit.

"I wasn't asking," Harry said. "Sit down in that chair."

"Why?" the man wanted to know. "It looks kinda uncomfortable."

"It's really not," Tonks supplied, grinning.

"And for that matter, who are you?" the man asked Harry, ignoring Tonks.

"Dr. Harry Potter," Harry said. "Now, sit down."

The man looked from Harry to the chair, then turned back to Harry with a rebellious look on his face.

"I don't wanna."

"Why not?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not gonna take the orders of a man with stitches in his face!"

"My stitches have nothing to do with-"

"Harry!"

Said mad scientist twitched as he spun around, to find O'Neill approaching with Weir, Daniel, and McKay in tow.

"O'Neill! Good to see you," Harry said, smiling immediately. "How's life?"

"So-so," O'Neill answered. "What are you doing with my pilot?"

"I'm telling him to sit," Harry said. "He's being reluctant to comply."

"Sir, I don't-" the man started, but O'Neill interrupted him.

"Harry, he hasn't even received security clearance."

Harry scoffed. "Then you shouldn't have brought him here. Besides..."

Harry reached out with incredible speed, giving the man's chest a push and making him stumble back into the chair, which immediately activated, leaning him back and raising his legs.

"Woah!" the man exclaimed in surprise.

"...he's a natural," Harry finished. "Okay, er..." He trailed off and turned to O'Neill, looking at him questioningly.

"Major John Sheppard."

"Okay, Major," Harry said, turning back to the man in the chair. "Think about where we are in the solar system."

Suddenly, a holographic image of the solar system appeared above them, making Harry smile brightly.

"Did I do that?" Sheppard asked in surprise.

"Oh, come on!" Tonks barked. "He's a natural, too?"

–

Harry hummed to himself as he magically shrunk various parts and tools in his lab, pocketing them in his coat.

"I really do wish you'd come with me," he said, glancing at Freya, who stood staring at him solemnly.

"I wish I could, Harry, I really do, but Anise and I cannot do any such thing until the tyranny of the Goa'uld is vanquished," Freya said with a sigh. "In any event, we will be able to see each other often thanks to your Superdrive."

"I'll have to send Aceso to pick you up as often as possible, or Nym might get upset, so you'll have to be prepared to take time off unexpectedly," Harry said, which made Freya smile.

Freya looked like she was about to speak, but just then, a knock came upon Harry's lab door, and upon his urging, Teal'c stepped inside, standing as straight as always. Maybe Teal'c just simply didn't know how to relax...

"Harry Potter," Teal'c said stiffly. "I understand that you are about to embark on an expedition to Atlantis?"

"That's right," Harry said with a nod, grinning as he lit a cigarette. "Come to tell me how much you're going to miss me?"

"You have certainly left an impression in this place, Harry Potter," Teal'c said, and Harry was amazed to see a very small smile on the Jaffa's face. "It will feel very strange once you leave. I came to wish you luck in the Pegasus Galaxy."

Teal'c raised his fist to his chest and gave Harry a bow of his head.

"It has been an honor knowing you, Harry Potter."

Harry raised his own hand to his chest and gave a nod (not a bow, never a bow).

"Likewise, Teal'c. Take care of yourself."

Harry, now finished packing, left his lab with Freya. He headed to the control room, where he found Weir, Daniel, and O'Neill.

"Hey, kids, how's Mary doing?"

"He is just about ready to get the ZPM hooked up," Daniel said. "What about you, are you ready to leave?"

"Yup," Harry said with a nod. "Well, almost. I just need my chair, but Nym is having a bit of fun with it right now."

"Alright, well, I wish you kids luck," O'Neill said, smiling at Harry and Weir. "You should probably get down there. Make a speech, or something."

"Take care of yourself, O'Neill," Harry said, shaking the man's head, then shaking Daniel's. "Oh, and Daniel?"

"Yeah?"

Harry reached into his coat and took out a flash drive, holding it out to Daniel.

"This holds a rather extensive Ancient to English dictionary, including the various dialects and variations that were stored in the Repository."

"Oh, wow... Uh, thanks, Harry," Daniel mumbled, taking the flash drive. "Good luck out there."

Meanwhile, down in the Gate Room, Major John Sheppard was looking around in amazement. Just a few days ago, he didn't even believe humanity was capable of proper space travel. And now he was suddenly going to a city that was in actuality a ship, which had landed somewhere in a whole other galaxy...

Not only that, but the guy who owned the damn city was apparently a descendant of the ancient, super advanced people who built the thing, along with this Stargate thing! And he was a completely mad scientist who had all but ordered Sheppard to come along, because he was one of the few who were capable of using that chair thing that controlled that kind of technology. Apparently, there were many things in Atlantis that required such control.

Several clinks of metal hitting concrete were heard behind him, and Sheppard turned around, only to flinch in utter surprise.

There was a damn robot standing there! It looked kinda scary, to be honest, given how it had a damn shoulder-mounted cannon!

"Holy crap!" Sheppard barked, and the robot turned its head to gaze at him.

"_Thank you, meatbag. It is always enjoyable to elicit such a reaction from people,_" the robot said in a monotone voice that somehow managed to sound sadistic.

"What the hell are you?"

"_I am the greatest creation of my master. My designation is Frank, state-of-the-art synthetic lifeform._"

"Attention, please!" came Dr. Harry Potter's voice just as Sheppard was about to speak.

The mad scientist came walking into the Gate Room and made his way up the ramp, holding a bag in his hand.

"Some ground rules, before we dial in," Dr. Potter said, looking around at the gathered scientists and soldiers. "Atlantis is my city. I am the mayor, the ruler, the king. My word is law, and my word is this: Don't touch what you're not allowed to touch. Don't steal anything. Don't think you can boss me around in my city. Don't bug me. When I'm not around, Dr. Elizabeth Weir is in charge. Soldiers, remember that. Don't think you are better than me or the scientists just because you are officers."

The man fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with... What the hell? A snap of his fingers?

"And another thing... Dr. Weir informs me that you are all the world's best and brightest. For that, I hereby formally invite you all to join me in Atlantis. You may study, you may learn, so long as you do not steal anything. Now that we're clear on that..."

Dr. Potter looked up at General O'Neill in the control room.

"...begin the dialing sequence."

The Gate began dialing as Harry made his way down the ramp, puffing on his cigarette. When he noticed the group split to form a path, he instinctively lashed out just in time to stop a pink projectile, who was rolling across the floor at an amazing speed, stopping Tonks, who was rolling in his chair, by grabbing the backrest.

"This is brilliant," Tonks said with a grin on her face. "The floors are really smooth, and perfect for rolling. I can see why you enjoy spending so much time here."

"Nym, are you packed and ready?"

"Yup," Tonks said, patting the backpack she was holding in one hand. "Are we ready to go?"

Harry jutted his thumb over his shoulder to point at the Gate, which was currently dialing.

"Oh, goody!" Tonks said, rising from the chair and clapping her hands together.

"You're acting like a child, Nym," Harry said in amusement, smirking at Tonks as he picked up his chair.

"I _feel_ like a child," Tonks said happily.

"Well, don't just charge in as soon as the wormhole opens," Harry said as he reached into his pocket, taking out a baseball-sized metallic orb. "Frank."

The AI came walking over, catching the orb as Harry tossed it to him. Frank place the orb on his shoulder, and the orb seemed to split horizontally, the top half rising about an inch to show a glowing interior.

"_I have connected to the drone, master,_" Frank informed Harry, who nodded and opened his control device, just as a technician in the control room called, "Chevron eight is locked!"

The Stargate activated, and everyone, including Tonks, but excluding Frank and Harry, started applauding.

"Alright, Frank, send it in," Harry said, to which Frank nodded as the orb on his shoulder suddenly floated into the air, then shot straight into the event horizon.

Harry pushed a button on his control device, and was very pleased when a holographic version of an Ancient-style Gate Room constructed itself before his eyes. Increasing the power of the drone's sensors, he watched as even more was built onto the holographic room. Next, he checked the data, to see that there was oxygen inside the city, with no measurable toxins.

"Alright," Harry said as he closed his control device, the holographic map fading out of view. "Let's go."

"Let's go, people!" the man in charge of the security force, Colonel Sumner, said as he made his way up the ramp. "Security teams One and Two, you're up first. All other personnel will follow on our-"

Sumner stopped when a hand was placed on his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked, frowning at Sumner.

"We are going to secure the city before we let anyone through," Sumner said, giving Harry a glare, "as per our orders."

"Not before me, you don't," Harry said. "I'm going fir-"

"I'm first!" came a yell as a pink blur shot past Harry, straight into the Stargate.

"Nym!" Harry barked in shock. "Oh, you little minx..."

With that, Harry rushed in after her, followed swiftly by Frank, who was carrying his chair.

Harry came stepping out of the Gate into the Atlantis Gate Room, to find Tonks already there and looking around in amazement.

"This is beautiful!" Tonks said happily. "Look at all the colors!"

"Yeah, you'll certainly not see anything like this in Earth architecture," Harry said with a smile as Colonel Sumner and Dr. Weir stepped out of the Gate as well, soon followed by the security teams.

"Teams One and Two, secure the immediate area," Sumner ordered.

"There is no need, meatbag," Frank said, his head slowly turning from side to side as the drone came floating back to him, landing on his shoulder. "My scans indicate that there are no other lifeforms in this city."

"The energy output is low," Harry said, lighting a cigarette as he looked around. "Very low. The whole city is asleep. Don't start spreading out until I give the go-ahead, Colonel."

"And why is that, exactly?" Sumner wanted to know, giving Harry a look of dislike.

Harry sighed and reached into his bag, taking out a Crysteri and holding it up.

"Colonel, when the city is asleep, one of these can sustain it for a couple of thousand years. All in all, I think the Ancients left three of them to power the city. By now, if we're lucky, at least one should be depleted, with the second about to reach maximum entropy."

"And if we're unlucky?" Weir asked as personnel started coming through the Gate, carrying equipment.

"If we're unlucky, the city has already depleted two of them, with the last one reaching maximum entropy."

"And how is that bad?" Sumner asked.

"I know you can't exactly tell with any scanners you have, but have you looked out the window?" Harry wanted to know. When everyone shook their heads, Harry pointed at a nearby door. "Through that door, second door on your right."

Sumner and Weir shared confused looks, then walked off. They came back within a few minutes, however, both of them wide-eyed.

"We're underwater!" Weir gasped, to which Harry nodded.

"We're underwater," he confirmed. "The amount of pressure on the shield surrounding the city should be enough to severely cut down on the lives of the Crysteri. So if you don't mind, I'd like to replace them and raise the city before you decide to go exploring."

Harry put the Crysteri back in its bag, then walked off.

"Nym, Frank, with me."

Soon found Harry, Tonks, Frank, Weir, and Sumner standing in a rather small room at the base of the central tower of the city, which contained a raised device that came out in three points. On each point, there was a hexagonal hole, inside which were three Crysteri, and in front of the device stood two command consoles.

"Alright, here we go," Harry said, pressing a few crystals on one of the console. The three Crysteri rose up out of the device. Only one of them were glowing. Harry reached into his back and handed a Crysteri to Frank, while taking another for himself. They moved around the consoles and replaced the depleted Crysteri with the new ones. Now that they had been inserted, Harry removed the last one and replaced it as well.

"There," Harry said with a pleased smile, walking back to the console and pressing another set of crystals, which caused the Crysteri to sink back into the device. "We have power. These three, provided the shield doesn't take one hell of a beating, should last the city a lifetime."

Harry left the Crysteri room without a word, heading back to the Gate Room, where the personnel had already spread out, and were looking over the various consoles in the control room.

"Move!" Harry barked at a scientist, who was looking over one of the consoles, making him jump away in fright. Harry walked up to the console and started entering commands, Tonks reaching into his coat pocket and fishing out a cigarette to put in his mouth. "Thanks, Nym."

Harry, ignoring the looks he got from Weir and Sumner demanding an explanation, worked in silence as Tonks fished a lighter out of her pocket (she hadn't yet revealed that she could manipulate fire) and lit his cigarette.

"And now... up," Harry said, pressing a crystal.

Immediately, the whole city began to shake as it broke free from the ocean floor, knocking several of the personnel off their feet as it slowly rose upward. Within moments, it broke through the surface of the ocean, allowing sunlight to shine through the windows.

"We're on the surface," Sumner said in amazement as the shaking stopped.

"How observant of you," Harry said with a smirk, reaching over to another console and entering commands. "I'm diverting power from the shield for now. No need to cause an unnecessary drain."

"But what if we're attacked?" Sumner muttered.

"Thought of that," Harry said immediately. "In the event that our long-range sensors detect a ship so much as glancing in our direction, the shield will return to full power."

Smiling, Harry walked up to the railing to look down at the people on the lower floor.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Atlantis!"

–

Harry stood with his eyes closed on one of the balconies of Atlantis, very high up in the central tower. The air smelled amazing. Completely unpolluted.

A hiss was heard as the door opened behind him, and Dr. Weir's voice said, "So this is where you were."

"Yeah. I just wanted some time alone to... enjoy the moment," Harry said with a grin. "Atlantis is even more amazing than I thought."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought I was going to get bored quickly here," Harry explained. "I thought that the only thing I'd have to amuse myself with would be the wonders of the Pegasus Galaxy. However, Atlantis has changed."

"It doesn't fit in with the plans in your head?" Weir asked as she walked up to the railing to lean against it.

"Oh, it fits, somewhat," Harry said. "However, the plans are old, very old, and the Ancients who lived here have made many upgrades to it since they came here. There's much to discover."

Weir nodded slowly. Then, she glanced at Harry.

"So, a group is going to be sent through the Gate to find people to trade with for food. Did you want to go with them?"

"I don't know," Harry muttered, furrowing his brow. "Sounds kinda boring."

Another hiss was heard.

"I heard 'through the Gate'!" Tonks barked as she came rushing out onto the balcony, hopping up to sit on the railing and grin at Harry. "Let's go! It'd technically be the first time we go on an adventure together, wouldn't it?"

Harry smiled at Tonks.

"That's tempting, Nym, but there are no Ancients in Atlantis. You know, I'd really like to find out why that is."

"What do you mean?" Weir asked.

"Well, sure, the Ancients built big things, and they built a lot of them, but they wouldn't just build a city, bring it here, and then leave for no reason," Harry said. "Before I head through that Gate, I'd prefer to figure out why they left. I'd also like to do a full check of the city's defenses."

"That's boring," Tonks said simply. "_You're_ boring. Come on, Harry! I want to go!"

"Hell no. Until I've read through the complete record of the discoveries made in this galaxy, you're not going anywhere without me," Harry said, shaking his head.

"Then come with me."

"No."

"Harry..." Tonks hissed, narrowing her eyes. "Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to risk having me annoy you until you agree?"

"I doubt you could annoy me that much, Nym," Harry said, leaning over to kiss her. "You're too damn cute."

Tonks narrowed her eyes and held up her index finger. Harry watched as her nail grew longer, taking a shape that looked almost like a claw. Then, she reached into her jacket and took out a pocket mirror. Harry's eyes widened as she lowered her nail to the mirror and dragged it across the surface.

"AAH!" Harry screamed as his hands shot up to cover his ears. He immediately fled the balcony, which left Tonks to smile in satisfaction.

"What was that?" Weir asked in confusion.

"Harry hears things that no normal human could ever hear. A nail across glass, even this softly, is kinda like nails on a chalkboard for him," Tonks said happily, handing the mirror to Weir. "It's an effective means of convincing him to listen."

"I'll keep that in mind," Weir said with a smile as she pocketed the mirror.

–

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"That..."

Harry was grumbling as he stood in front of a console in the Gate Room, staring up at a holographic screen. He was going through the database of Gate addresses, trying to find one that looked good. Tonks stood behind him, and he knew that she was smirking in satisfaction. He glared over his shoulder at her, to see that he was right.

"Stop smirking..."

"Harry, you're adorable when you're sulking," she said pleasantly, walking up to Harry and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Admit it, you're going to enjoy going offworld with me."

"Of course I am," Harry muttered. "But I'd rather do some studies first... You're too impulsive..."

"Impulsive is good," Tonks said. "If I weren't impulsive, I never would have let you operate on me when we first met, and we probably never would have bonded, or fallen for each other."

"Sometimes. Impulsive is good _sometimes_. Not when there's a chance that you might get hurt."

"Which is exactly why I want you with me," Tonks countered. "If I get in over my head, you'll be there to protect me!"

"Speaking of which..." Harry muttered, reaching into his coat pocket and taking something out for Tonks.

It looks like it might have once been a snub-nosed revolver. Now, however, the cylinder had been replaced by a plasma battery, and the barrel was much wider and taller, though just as long as a snub-nosed revolver.

"Here..." he muttered handing it over to Tonks, who gasped.

"You made me a weapon?" she asked in surprise, taking it in her hand gingerly. "That's so sweet of you!"

"Just flip this switch," Harry explained, pointing at a switch on the plasma generator that had taken the place of the hammer, "then point it at whatever you don't want to exist anymore, and pull the trigger."

Tonks smiled fondly at him.

"I love it," she said, leaning up and giving Harry a kiss. "Thank you. I'd give you a present in return, but the people here are a bit too prude to see it."

Harry smiled at that, knowing tonight was going to be very fun. Then, he found what he was looking for and walked up to the upgraded Atlantis DHD.

"Alright, is everyone ready?" he asked, looking down at the floor below, to see the soldiers who had been gathered for the mission, along with Frank, give him thumbs up. "Alright, then."

Harry started dialing, and the upgraded Gate started cycling through symbols, locking on to seven of them, before the wormhole formed.

"Frank, send the drone."

Frank's eyes flashed, and the orb on his shoulder flew off through the Gate. There was a few seconds of silence, before Frank said, "_Multiple lifeforms detected, master. A preliminary scan of a nearby settlement indicates that the indigenous people are not very technologically advanced._"

"Alright, people, let's head on through," Colonel Sumner said as Harry and Tonks descended the stairs and joined the away-team.

Smiling brightly at her boyfriend, Tonks stepped through the Gate with Harry.

–

**End of chapter thirty-two! What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! In the next chapter, Harry encounters the dreaded enemy of the Ancients, and has a lot of fun studying them!**


End file.
